The Book of Cold Cases(10)

The pills were on the nightstand, but she couldn’t take one now. Not until she was sure about the door. Because if the door was unlocked, she didn’t want to be asleep when the thing outside came in.

So she waited, listening.

The dragging sound came again, and then there was the soft click of a doorknob, followed by the creak of a door. That was the bathroom down the hall. The dragging again, the click, the creak. That was Beth’s teenage bedroom. One by one, each door was being tried, opened. Then the next. Then the next. Until it came to the door of the master bedroom, at the very end of the hall.

Beth knew she should get up, run to the door, and make sure it was locked. But it was too late now. She couldn’t make herself move.

The dragging sound came closer now. Then the click. The doorknob to the master bedroom, being tried. Moving one way, then the other.

Beth closed her eyes.

You’re not leaving.

You’re not talking.

But things were changing. The fever of madness was about to break after all this time, and it was going to be messy. People would get hurt. That was what happened when you were touched by madness. You got hurt.

Beth knew all about madness.

Click. Click.

The doorknob turned one way, then the other. Then one way again. Then the other.

It didn’t open, because the door was locked.

Beth lunged for the bottle of pills on the nightstand as a voice rose in the hallway. A wail of despair, rising up and up. Then weeping.

“Please,” the voice said. “Please.”

It isn’t real, Beth told herself as she dry-swallowed the pill. She’s been dead for so long. It isn’t real.

“Please,” the voice wailed in the hall. Something jerked the doorknob hard, the click loud, but the lock held.

Beth Greer pushed the covers down and slid under them. None of this was real. The pill would kick in, and all of this would be gone in the morning, like a dream.

She closed her eyes and waited for sleep as outside in the hall, her mother wept and wept.





CHAPTER EIGHT


October 1977





BETH


The man sitting across from her put a cassette in the tape recorder on the desk and pressed the button. “It’s the twentieth of October, 1977,” he said as the tape turned. “My name is Detective Joshua Black, Claire Lake Police. Present are Detective Melvin Washington of the Oregon State Police and Elizabeth Greer. We are in the Claire Lake Police Department interview room. Miss Greer, do you agree to this interview being recorded?”

Beth kept her hands still in her lap. “Yes, I do.”

“Please state your age for the record.”

“I’m twenty-three.”

“And you are here voluntarily and are not under arrest. Is that correct?”

“That’s correct.”

Detective Black paused for a second, then nodded. He was in his early thirties, with thick brown hair worn just long enough to curl. She recognized him from the newspapers, especially the photo in the paper the morning after the first murder. It was taken from across the road from the murder scene and showed a car parked at the side of the road, a body under a sheet on the ground near it. Standing next to the car, wearing a dark coat, frowning at the ground, had been this man, who was sitting across from her now. She’d recognized him when he came to the door with his partner and asked her to come to the station. He was good-looking and clean-shaven, unlike his partner, Detective Washington, who stood leaning against the wall behind him, glaring at her from behind his heavy mustache.

Beth crossed her arms over the buttons of her blouse. It was cold in here, and she’d already noticed Washington giving her the once-over.

“Okay,” Detective Black said. “Miss Greer—”

“My name is Beth.”

He blinked, then said, “Okay, then, let’s get started. Can you tell us your whereabouts on the evening of October fifteenth, five days ago?”

“I was home.”

“Take your time and think. Are you certain?”

“Yes, I’m certain.”

“Are you sure about that?” This was Washington, his gaze fixed on her. His fingers drummed impatiently on the leg of his pants for a second, then stopped. “What were you doing, exactly?”

Beth tried not to flinch. “I was drinking,” she said.

“Alone?”

“I don’t know.” She was messing this up, her nerves scrambling her thoughts, making her doubt herself. “Yes, I was alone. I was drinking.”

Washington’s eyes narrowed in disapproval. Beth was used to that look. Everyone gave it to her—strangers, grocery store clerks, the neighbors in Arlen Heights that she had the misfortune to cross paths with. It was a look that said, You’re twenty-three and one of the wealthiest people in town, you have everything, and all you do is drink and party. You ought to be ashamed. No one cared that her parents were dead, that rich didn’t mean happy. No one cared that she lay awake nights, alone in the Greer mansion, imagining noises in the hallway and wondering what was real. The alcohol made all of those feelings go away, at least for a while. Beth was numb to that look, just like she was numb to everything else in her life.

“Miss Greer,” the handsome cop said, and even though his voice was gentle and understanding, the numbness fell away for a second. It was replaced with fear, toxic and wrenching, so consuming that Beth felt like screaming. This wasn’t a nightmare she was going to wake up from. These were the police, and this was real. She was here all alone.