EVIL DEEDS

EVIL DEEDS, PART I, Chapters 3 & 4

CHAPTER three

“Thirty-seventh Detachment, Sergeant Carpenter speaking, sir.”

“Sergeant Carpenter, it’s Liz Danforth. Please, I need to talk to my husband now!”

“He’s on the phone with the Colonel, Mrs. Danforth. How about I take a message and have him call you back in a minute?”

“No . . . No-o-o! I need to talk to Bob NOW!”

Carpenter carried a scrawled message into Bob’s office: “Mrs. D on line two. Urgent!” He dropped the message in front of Bob and left, closing the door behind him.

Bob looked at the note, surprised at the interruption. Carpenter knew better than to disturb him when he was talking with Colonel Gray. When he saw the word “Urgent!” he asked the Colonel to hold for a moment. He realized Liz had a habit of reacting to little everyday problems as crises, but he also knew she’d never called before and said it was urgent. He pushed the button for line two.

“Liz, what’s up? I was on the phone–”

“They took Michael,” she sobbed. “The Gypsies took our baby!”

“Liz, what are you talking–?”

Bob heard Liz’s voice suddenly change, from trembly to a brittle tenor akin to shattering glass. “He’s gone, Bob. Michael’s gone.”

“Sergeant Carpenter!” Bob shouted loud enough to be heard through the solid oak office door.

Carpenter ran back into the office. “Yes, sir!”

“Get my driver. Call the Greek police and tell them to get to my house. My son’s been kidnapped. Inform the security officer at the Embassy. And get on the line and explain to Colonel Gray.”

Throughout the ride down the narrow, curving road from the nuclear missile site at Katsamidi, Bob begged his driver, Demetrius, to go faster. He tried to keep his imagination from cartwheeling out of control. What could have happened to his son? He’d held him in his arms less than an hour ago, nuzzling him, smelling his sweet baby skin. He’d kissed Liz and Michael and petted the dog and, as he did every morning, said, “Keep your head down.”

He hadn’t really worried about his family’s safety – Athens was safer than his hometown of Pittsburgh. Their suburb of Kifissia was about as safe a place as anyone could find.

The pickup screeched around the corner, sliding on the gravel shoulder in front of the house, when Demetrius braked hard. Bob leaped from the truck before it completely stopped, then raced through the front gate. A trail of dark red spots led up the white, mottled terrazzo steps and onto the front porch. Flies buzzed around the spots. A smear of red led to a bone-handled knife with a bloodied six-inch blade lying in one corner of the porch. Bob’s stomach seemed to somersault and the familiar tingling, breath-arresting signs of fear assailed his chest.

The droplets of blood continued past the threshold and down the marble entryway, back toward the bedrooms.

“Liz!” Bob called while he rushed toward the back of the house. No answer. He found her in Michael’s room, kneeling next to White Dog, in the middle of a pure-white flokati rug, her arms, jeans, and tank top spotted, smeared with still-damp blotches of blood. A chill hit Bob’s spine and nausea rose in his throat.

Liz looked up at him, her blue eyes glistening with tears, with an open-eyed, childlike expression. “She’s dead, Bob. They took our baby and killed White Dog.”

Bob dropped to his knees and pressed a hand against the dog’s chest. Nothing. No pulse, no movement, no sound. He bent closer and leaned his head against White Dog’s chest. He thought he heard a heartbeat but it could have been his imagination. No, there it was again.

CHAPTER four

In a flurry of movement, Bob wrapped White Dog in the rug, carried her out to the pickup truck, and ordered his driver to take the dog to the veterinarian, three blocks away on Levidou Street. He then raced back into the house, back to Liz. He found her in the same spot, an open suitcase on the floor beside her, packing some of Michael’s clothes.

“What happened?” Bob asked, forcing himself to remain calm. “Tell me what happened to Michael.”

The look in Liz’s eyes momentarily took Bob’s breath away. They were dull, lifeless. “The Gypsies,” she said. “They took my baby.”

This made no sense to Bob. Gypsies kidnapped children only in old wives’ tales. He’d never heard of Gypsies stealing children in Greece. He would have known about such crimes from the weekly intelligence briefings he received. Bob tried to get Liz to talk, but she appeared almost catatonic. He reached down for her and pulled her to her feet. He used a hand to brush her hair away from her face.

“Come on, sweetheart; let’s get you cleaned up,” he said, trying to keep the terror out of his voice while he moved her toward the bathroom.

She moved sluggishly and leaned heavily against him. Then, as though she’d suddenly been charged with electricity, she lashed out at him, beating his chest with her fists, screaming. “You weren’t here, you weren’t here! We needed you, but you weren’t here!”

Then, just as suddenly as she had turned on him, she seemed to deflate, sagging into him.

Bob wrapped an arm around her waist and continued toward the bathroom.

“I carried White Dog home,” she said in a little girl voice.

“I know, Liz.” Bob felt as though his heart had been diced into a thousand pieces. Her words had penetrated his very soul. We needed you, but you weren’t here.

Bob gently moved Liz to the shower. He removed her blood-saturated clothes, tossed them on the shower floor, and turned on the water. The pan ran red, then pink with blood. After shutting off the water and toweling Liz dry, he took her bathrobe off a hook on the back of the door and helped her to put it on.

He tried again to get her to talk. “What happened, honey?” he rasped. “Tell me what happened. Tell me about the Gypsies,” he pleaded. 

“We have to get Michael’s clothes to him, Bob,” she said, her voice barely audible, droning as though she were drugged. “What’s he going to do without his clothes?”