The Door To December

Oh, God, please no. No.

Laura closed her eyes, trying to believe that this was still part of the dream from which the telephone had ostensibly awakened her. The call from the police actually might have been part of the nightmare. In which case, Quade was part of it too. And this house. She would wake up, and none of this would be real.

But when she opened her eyes, the coroner's van was still there. The windows of the house were heavily curtained, but the entire front was bathed in the harsh glow of portable floodlights. Silvery rain slanted through the bright light, and the shivering shadows of the wind-stirred shrubbery crawled across the walls.

A uniformed policeman in a rain slicker was stationed at the curb. Another officer stood under the roof that overhung the area around the front door. They were prepared to discourage curious neighbors and other onlookers, although the bad weather and late hour seemed to be doing their job for them.

Quade got out of the car, but Laura couldn't move.

He leaned back in and said, 'This is the place.'

Laura nodded but still didn't move. She didn't want to go inside. She knew what she would find. Melanie. Dead.

Quade waited a moment, then came around the car and opened her door. He held out one hand to her.

The wind sprayed fat droplets of cold rain past Quade, into the car.

He frowned. 'Mrs. McCaffrey? Are you crying?'

She couldn't shift her gaze from the coroner's van. When it drove off with Melanie's small body, it would carry Laura's hope away, as well, and would leave her with a future as dead as her daughter.

In a voice no less tremulous than the wind-shaken leaves on the Indian laurels, she said, 'You lied to me.'

'Huh? Hey, no, not at all, really.'

She wouldn't look at him.

Blowing air between his lips, making an odd horse like sound that was hardly appropriate to the circumstances, he said, 'Well, yeah, this is a homicide case. We've got a couple of bodies.'

A scream swelled in her, and when she held it back, the pent-up pressure was a painful burning in her chest.

Quade quickly continued. 'But your little girl isn't in there. She's not one of the bodies. Honestly, she isn't.

Laura finally met his eyes. He seemed sincere. There would be no point in lying to her now, because she would soon learn the truth, anyway, when she went inside.

She got out of the car.

Taking her by the arm, Officer Quade led her up the walk to the front door.

The rain pounded as solemnly as drums in a funeral cortege.

2

The guard went inside to get Lieutenant Haldane. Laura and Quade waited under the overhang, sheltering from the worst of the wind and rain.

The night smelled of ozone and roses. Rosebushes twined around support stakes along the front of the house, and in California, most varieties bloomed even in the winter. The flowers drooped, soggy and heavy in the rain.

Haldane arrived without delay. He was tall, broad-shouldered, roughly hewn, with short sandy hair and a square, appealing, Irish face. His blue eyes looked flat, like twin ovals of painted glass, and Laura wondered if they always looked that way or whether they were flat and lifeless tonight because of what he had seen in the house.

He was wearing a tweed sport coat, a white shirt, a tie with the knot loosened, gray slacks, and black loafers. Except for his eyes, he looked like a comfortable, easygoing, laid-back sort of guy, and there was genuine warmth in his brief smile.

'Doctor McCaffrey? I'm Dan Haldane.'

'My daughter—'

'We haven't found Melanie yet.

'She isn't…?'

'What?'

'Dead?'

'No, no. Good heavens, no. Not your girl. I wouldn't have brought you here if that had been the case.'

She felt no relief, because she wasn't sure that she believed him. He was tense, edgy. Something horrible had happened in this house. She was sure of it. And if they hadn't found Melanie, why had they brought her out at this hour? What was wrong?

Haldane dismissed Carl Quade, who headed back through the rain to the patrol car.

'Dylan? My husband?' Laura asked.

Haldane's stare slid away from hers. 'Yes, we think we've located him.'

'He's… dead?'

'Well… yeah. Apparently it's him. We've got a body carrying his ID, but we haven't positively tagged him yet. We'll need a dental-records check or a fingerprint match to make it positive.'

The news of Dylan's death had surprisingly little effect on her. She felt no loss, because she'd spent six years hating him. But she wasn't happy about it, either: no glee, no triumph or satisfaction, no sense that Dylan had gotten what he deserved. He had been an object of love, then hatred, now indifference. She felt absolutely nothing, and perhaps that was the saddest thing of all.

The wind changed direction. Icy rain blew under the overhang. Haldane drew Laura back into the corner, as far as they could go.

She wondered why he didn't take her inside. There must be something that he didn't want her to see. Something too horrible for her to see? What in the name of God had happened in there?

'How did he die?' she asked.

'Murdered.'

'Who did it?'

'We don't know.'

'Shot?'

'No. He was… beaten to death.'

'My God.' She felt sick. She leaned against the wall because her legs were suddenly weak.

'Doctor McCaffrey?' Concerned, he took her by the arm, ready to provide support if she needed it.

'I'm okay,' she said. 'But I expected Dylan and Melanie to be together. Dylan took her away from me.'

'I know.'

'Six years ago. He closed out our bank accounts, quit his job, and ran off. Because I wanted a divorce. And he wasn't willing to share custody of Melanie.'

'When we put his name in the computer, it gave us you, the whole file,' Haldane said. 'I haven't had time to learn the particulars, but I read the highlights on the mobile VDT in the car, so I'm sort of familiar with the case.'

'He ruined his life, threw away his career and everything to be able to keep Melanie. Surely she must still be with him,' Laura said exasperatedly.

'She was. She was living here with him—'

'Living here? Here? Only ten or fifteen minutes from me?'

'That's right.'

'But I hired private detectives, several of them, and nobody could get a lead—'

'Sometimes,' Haldane said, 'the purloined-letter trick is the best trick of all.'

'I thought maybe they'd even left the country, gone to Mexico or somewhere — and all the time they were right here.'

The wind subsided, and the rain came straight down, even heavier than before. The lawn would soon be a lake.

'There are some clothes here for a little girl,' Haldane said, 'several books suitable for a kid her age. There's a box of Count Chocula cereal in the cupboard, and I'm sure none of the adults were eating that.'

'None of them? There were more people here than just Dylan and Melanie?'

'We're not sure. We've got… other bodies. We think one of them was living here, because there were men's clothes in two sizes, some of which would fit your husband, but some that might fit one of the other men.'

'How many bodies?'

'Two others. Three altogether.'

'Beaten to death?'

He nodded.

'And you don't know where Melanie is?'

'Not yet.'

'So maybe… whoever killed Dylan and the others took her away with him.'