Read The Girls Are Missing for Free Online

sun-porch. Sheila asked, “But how did you know to report it? How did it enter your mind that it was, you know, human?”
    “I don’t know. I guess after I went there it just seemed too deliberate. But I felt awfully silly.”
    “You shouldn’t have. If Anita’d said anything to me, I might have called them myself. But she didn’t, so I thought it was nothing, till Herb came by. I’m telling you, I nearly went into shock. Can you imagine?”
    She paused to take a long swallow of her drink, then burst out, “My God, it makes me sick! I’m glad it was covered up and they couldn’t see. Do you want to know what Herb said? It was pretty far gone, but he said, even without an autopsy, they—Well, anyway, it was tied up, at least the hands. And there were stab wounds all over, and the worst part—” She drew a line from her rib cage almost to the pubic mound. “He just sliced her open, right down the middle.”
    “Sheila …” Pam set down her drink and clutched at her stomach.
    “All cut to pieces,” Sheila went on. “She was gutted . At least they assume it’s a she. I mean, things like that don’t happen to men, they’re the ones who do things like that. They compared it to Jack the Ripper.”
    “Sheila, please.”
    “Oh, I’m sorry, Joyce. Anyway, at least he didn’t do it right there. It makes me feel a little better about the girls.”
    I don’t see how, thought Joyce. “That’s what they told me, too. It was moved. In that condition. Who’d have the stomach to do that?”
    “Listen, honey, the guy must be totally out of it. All that mutilation, how sick can you get?”
    “It’s making me awfully sick,” said Pam. “Mind if I go out and look at your rock garden, Joyce? I saw a beautiful aquilegia, and I just love them. When my Brucie was small, he used to bite off those little round things on the crown so he could taste the nectar.”
    “It’s not much of a garden, I’m afraid,” Joyce apologized. “I haven’t had time, with the baby.”
    As Pam’s sandals clicked away toward the kitchen, Sheila moved her chair closer to Joyce.
    “I wish they’d just lock up that Lattimer and have done with it.” She stopped and listened, and in the distance, the back door closed. “It was Lattimer, of course. He’s the nut
    around here. Anybody can figure that out, except they have these technicalities, so they can’t arrest him. But now wait, obviously I couldn’t say this in front of her, but do you know that Bruce—the husband, not the kid—do you know he has this reputation with babysitters—Just the other night he was driving one home, and he was a little high, and before the girl knew it, they parked on one of those back roads—”
    “You’re saying that about Bruce Cheskill?”
    “I don’t know if Pam even knows. Well, to make a long story short, the girl got away, but my God, how can I tell Pam why I won’t let June or Denise sit for her anymore?”
    “Oh, you couldn’t.” Joyce sat back in her chair. “You know, I can almost believe it. He’s one of those big, beefy types.” She tried to think of a word. Sensual? “And he does get slobbery when he’s drunk.”
    “All libido and no brains.”
    That was the word. Libido. But Bruce did have enough brains to be an advertising executive, which she supposed was fairly responsible.
    “Now Mr. Lattimer,” she said, “he’s so pickled all the time, I doubt if he has any libido.”
    “Don’t you believe it.”
    “And he’s no spring chicken. But maybe, with men, that doesn’t make any difference.”
    “Not with freaks.” Sheila rose stiffly to her feet. “I wish they could keep them both under surveillance. What a thing for our poor little police force. Hey, I’ve got to run. I don’t want to leave my kids alone too long.”
    She collected Anita, plucked Pam out of the rock garden, and drove away. Joyce looked up at the aquilegia in its pocket of stone. Poor gentle Pam, with her love of flowers.
    But it