The Devils Punchbowl - Greg Iles

The comment about using bait stayed with her, though, and before much time passed, the rudiments of a plan had formed in her mind. If she could somehow get to the stall that holds the cats, she could pry off the bars of a window on one side of the kennel, toss a couple of cats out as bait, then jump through a window on the opposite side and sprint for the fence. If the dogs are hungry enough, she feels sure she can cover the twenty feet required before they figure out her trick. Of course, getting to the cats proved impossible last night. Prying up a sheet of tin from the top side of the roof had proved much harder than kicking up a section from below. If she didn't have to worry about sliding off into the jaws of ravenous pit

bulls, it might be easier, but there’s no point thinking like that. She’s made decent progress on the tin sheet over the spot where, by the sound of mewling, she judges the cats to be, but she stopped with first light, worried that Quinn would show up. It will take another hour’s work to get the sheet pried up enough to drop down and get at the cats.

The real problem with her escape plan is Linda. Even if Caitlin can somehow free Linda from her collar and chain, her leg injuries might keep her from running quickly enough to the fence—never mind climbing it.

The only other option Caitlin can think of is the storeroom. Quinn has taken Linda into the storeroom to rape her, and Linda recalls seeing a drug cabinet and stacks of bagged puppy chow inside it. She does not, however, recall seeing any tools. If the cabinet contains tranquilizers like the one they used on Caitlin, there might be some chance of drugging the dogs. But unless she can get down through the roof of the storeroom, that option is off the table. And according to Linda, the men who feed and train the dogs are likely to show up soon—they come once in the morning and once in the evening—and Quinn could appear at any time.

The chain next door rattles louder than before, and Caitlin stops bobbing in her crouch. She hears Linda groan through the plywood, then a parched sobbing sound.

“Linda? It’s Caitlin. I'm here.”

The chain rattles loudly, and Caitlin hears plastic slide.

“Oh my God,” Linda whines. “I have to pee. What am I going to do?”

“Just grit your teeth and do it. That'’s all you can do.”

“I can’t! I can’t take it!”

“You have to. I'm with you.”

The plastic pail slides again, and there’s momentary silence. Then Caitlin hears urine hitting the plastic pail, and Linda begins to scream. Caitlin hugs herself and tries to block it out. Once, when she was hiking in Belize with a boyfriend, she developed a urinary tract infection from too frequent sex. The pain was almost unbearable, and by the time they got back to civilization, it had spread to her kidneys. She’d spent three days in a hospital on IV antibiotics, wondering what women had done before the discovery of penicillin.

Surely millions must have died, and in the same agony that Linda Church is suffering now.

There’s a heavy bump against the plywood wall, and the chain rattles loudly. Linda is gasping. Caitlin is about to try to comfort her when she hears the sound of an engine. The pit bulls begin barking wildly.

“Oh, no,” Linda says. “Nooo…”

The engine dies, and a door slams.

Linda’s sobs grow louder. “I can’t do this!” she wails. “Oh, God, don'’t let them do this.”

Caitlin speaks a few words of reassurance, but her heart is skipping from fear. She’s never been at the mercy of a man the way Linda has these past hours, much less a sadistic psychopath. As she struggles to gain control of herself, she hears Linda reciting a Bible verse. Caitlin doesn’'t recognize it, but the sound of the terrified woman steels something within her. Long ago Caitlin determined that she would not go through life as a victim, and she has no intention of becoming one now.

By the time the door of the kennel building slams open, she’s standing naked but erect in her cell, right over the bloody footprints that could alert her captors to her nocturnal efforts. She’s used some of her precious drinking water to try to lighten the bloody marks, but the only real result was to make them larger. If anyone notices, she plans to tell them she’s started her period.

She hears booted feet come up the aisle between the stalls, then stop just short of her room. Though she can’t see Quinn, she remembers his photograph from the Golden Parachute file Penn showed her. He was handsome in what some call the black-Irish way, with curly black hair, dark eyes, and good bone structure. But even in the photograph the whole effect was spoiled by what appeared to be gray, badly-cared-for teeth.

“Top of the mornin’ to you, ladies,” Quinn calls. Then his voice moves closer to Caitlin’s door. “How you doin’ in there, princess?”

“She needs medicine!” Caitlin shouts. “She’s really sick.”

“I gave her some antibiotics.”

“They’re not working!”

“I'’ll give her something else then. We definitely don'’t want anything interfering with our party.”

“Just let her alone! She’s in agony!”

“You want to take her place, princess?”

The question seems so genuine that something jumps in Caitlin’s chest.

“I wouldn'’t mind a piece of you, darlin’. Cleanest I’'ve ever had, by the look of you.”

For one primal moment Caitlin wonders if Linda wishes he would turn his attention to Caitlin today.

Of course she does. And I can’t blame her

A key rattles in the lock on Linda’s cage, and Linda begins to shriek.

“LET HER ALONE!” Caitlin shouts.

“Ah, it’ll pass, now she’s done her business. She’ll be ready for another workout in no time.”

Caitlin crushes her palms over her ears as she hasn’'t done since she was a child.

CHAPTER

50

I'm sitting at a private table in a side room of the Castle, the restaurant Caitlin and I frequented most often when she lived here. It’s a Gothic outbuilding of Dunleith, the most magnificent antebellum mansion in the city. I often make sure that people who are flying in to look at industrial sites stay here, and to prime them for the experience, I tell them that the main house makes Tara in

Gone With the Wind

look like a utility shed. No one has ever argued the point.

Caitlin and I have had good meals and bad ones at the Castle, not because of the quality of the food, but because we’ve worked through so many phases of our relationship over the tables here. When times were good, we ate at the small table in back, beside the window overlooking the verdant grounds. When times weren’t so great, we ate in the private dining room where I'm waiting now. If Caitlin does show up, she won'’t be surprised to find me at this table.

It’s 12:25 now, and though I hate to admit it to myself, she’s probably not coming. Caitlin tends to be late now and then, but she wouldn'’t be on a day such as this. I can’t quite believe she’d leave me sitting here without even a phone call, or at least a text message. But I guess she feels strongly enough about where things are to view standing me up as her statement on the subject. I should probably

just order lunch and try to parse out her feelings, but given my conversations with Annie, I don'’t think I can put this event—or nonevent—behind me without being sure Caitlin hasn’'t been delayed by something unforeseen.

I speed-dial her cell, but it kicks me immediately to voice mail. Either she switched off her phone, anticipating upsetting calls from me, or else she’s driving south and chatting happily to Jan about the documentary she’ll soon be working on.

Searching my contact list, I call the

Examiner

office and ask for Kim Hunter, the reporter who is Caitlin’s best remaining friend on the staff. It takes some time for Kim to come to the phone.

“Hello?” says a young male voice free of any Southern accent.

“Kim, it’s Penn Cage.”

“Hey.”

“Look, I'm down at the Castle, and I thought Caitlin was going to be joining me for lunch. Do you know anything about that?”

“No. She didn't say anything to me.”

“You saw her this morning?”

“No. I haven'’t seen her since yesterday afternoon. She came in and pulled some old stories she worked on.”

“Do you know what stories?”

“Something she did on charismatic religions. You know, foot washers and faith healers, that kind of stuff.”

Maybe the stories have something to do with her interviews in New Orleans, I think, though it seems unlikely. “Did she say anything to you about going to New Orleans today?”

This time the silence is longer, and Hunter sounds uncertain about telling me more. “She said she might be going down to do some interviews for a documentary being shot there.”

“I know about all that, Kim. About Jan, everything. Please tell me anything you know.”

“Hang on. Mike would know more about that. He’s been taking messages from the guy.”

“From the filmmaker?”

“Right. He’s called here two or three times this morning. Hang on.”

I hear the phone clatter onto something hard.

An alarm is buzzing in my head…. If Caitlin had made plans to

be in New Orleans today, she would have made them directly with Jan—of that I'm sure.

“Penn?”

“I'm here.”

“Mike said the guy called just a few minutes ago. He’s been trying to get Caitlin all morning. Apparently Mike figured Caitlin was with you, working on whatever you guys have been doing this past couple of days.”

“Thanks, Kim, I appreciate it. If you hear from her, please have her call me immediately, okay?”

“I will. Is something wrong? Should we be worried?”

“I don'’t know. Just try to find her if you can.”

My next call is to the landline at Caitlin’s house, but by the fifth ring I'm already out of the restaurant and running to my car.

My tires screech as I skid into the curb in front of Caitlin’s house. Her door is standing open. It was closed this morning when Annie and I left for school. For a moment I think everything might be okay, but then I realize Caitlin’s rental car isn’t in the driveway.

Bounding up the steps, I go through the door and find Kelly crouched over Carl Sims, trying to unwrap duct tape from his wrists. Carl is lying on the floor, his eyes closed, his usually mahogany skin almost gray.

“What happened?” I ask. “Where’s Caitlin?”

“Not here, that’s all I know. I just got here. Carl’s fucked up. They darted him with something.” Kelly points to an orange feather lying on the floor, then looks up at me. “I think they’ve taken her.”

“

Taken

her?”

“Kidnapped her.”

“Sands?”

“Who else? But why, I have no idea.”

My vision begins to blur as panic rushes through me. “I tried to call you on my way here. Why didn't you answer?”

“I can’t find my cell phone.”

“Is Carl alive?”

“His heart’s beating. They must have hit him with some kind of big-game tranquilizer. I just called 911.”

“You didn't check in with him last night?”

“Dude, I didn't wake up until two minutes ago. I think they drugged me too. Somebody must have slipped something into my drink at the Corner Bar.”

“Why the hell would they take Caitlin now? We had an agreement!”

Kelly gently slaps Carl’s face. “Either they want something from you, or they want to keep you from doing something.”

“I already told them I was backing off!”

“I just thought of a third possibility.”

“What?”

“Caitlin wasn'’t too happy about our deal to back off. What if she

didn't

? What if she kept working the case?”

Immediately, I know Kelly’s right. Still, I say, “She wouldn'’t do that.”

He gives me a look. “Come on, man. This is Caitlin we’re talking about.”

She told me last night that she considered our agreement terminated—

“Do you know where she was yesterday?” Kelly asks. “What she did all day? Because Carl wasn'’t with her a lot of the time. She told him she needed some time alone, and she meant it. I was surprised she let him stay here last night.”

“That'’s

why

she let him stay,” I think aloud. “She knew there was risk, because she was still working this thing. Damn it!”

Kelly puts his ear to Carl’s chest, then feels his pulse.

“What should I do? Call the FBI? Caitlin’s father?”

“No way. Hell no.”

“That'’s what anybody else would do. That'’s why this was such a stupid move on their part!”

“Sands expects you to know the rules. Calling in the FBI automatically risks the life of the hostage. You go public, like her father might, you’d be signing her death sentence. Think about it: If Caitlin kept pushing the case, Sands would assume you were too. So he thinks

you

broke the agreement. They don'’t want to kill her. But they could. That'’s the whole point of taking her. You’ve got to stay cool. You’ll hear from them soon. You should go across the street and check your message machine.”

“They know my damned cell number!”

As Kelly and I stare at each other, Carl begins to cough in his arms. Then he vomits onto Kelly’s leg and the hardwood floor.

“Thank God he didn't do that last night,” Kelly says. “He had duct tape over his mouth. He would have done a Jimi Hendrix right here.”

“We can’t just wait around for Sands to make the next move.”

Kelly wipes vomit off his pants. “I should’ve just thrown him in the car instead of waiting on an ambulance. Jeez.” Kelly looks up at me with weary disgust. “What do you want to do?”

“Grab Sands or Quinn off the street and squeeze them until they tell us where she is. You told Sands yesterday that you’d kill him if he fucked with my family. Well, Caitlin is family.”

“She is, absolutely. But we won'’t be able to get to them now. They’ve gone to the mattresses.”

Carl seems to be breathing better, but he’s not yet coherent.