In Storage
It was mid-December, and fifty-nine-year-old Rhonda Engles was looking forward to more than three weeks of combined holiday and vacation time.
Three weeks off! she thought with a smile on her face as she made the drive on the interstate to her office. Once I finish my Christmas shopping, wrap my gifts and put up the tree, I'll have plenty of time to relax and enjoy the holiday season.
Rhonda, the first employee to arrive, walked through the door with a platter of homemade cookies, her usual holiday offering for her coworkers.
"Good morning!" she cheerfully called to her boss and placed the cookies on the table in the kitchen area.
Then she took off her jacket, hung it on the coat rack and sat down at her desk. Moments later, her boss came out of his office and the two exchanged the usual pleasantries over coffee and cookies.
When Rhonda saw the frown appear on his face, she knew something was wrong. There was no gentle way to break the news, no cushion to soften the blow, so the owner of the small, five-employee company for which she had worked for thirty years simply announced he was going to retire.
"I tried to find a buyer for the company," he said apologetically, "but with the economy the way it is, no one was interested. I have no other option than to close the business."
It was not an immediate severing of ties as though a guillotine had fallen on her job. The layoff would occur when the existing inventory was depleted, sometime in the new year. Rhonda took her vacation and came back in January, still not knowing when that day would come.
To be on the safe side, she used her Christmas bonus to pay off all but one of her credit cards. As she pondered how she would budget her money with a decrease in income, she silently chastised herself for the many foolish, impulse purchases she had made over the years.
Does a woman my age really need a doll collection? she thought, looking at her assortment of vintage fashion dolls.
In addition to her Barbies and other dolls, Rhonda had bought dozens of books that were collecting dust on her shelves, clothes she had never worn, jigsaw puzzles she had never put together and countless collectibles and souvenirs that not only cost her money she now wished she had saved but also cluttered the rooms of her house.
At the end of February, Rhonda's job finally came to an end. Her first action was to apply for state unemployment compensation; her second was to begin looking for work. With more than forty years of office experience, she was overqualified for the entry level jobs that were available—at least that's what she told herself since she did not want to believe that potential employers were turning her down solely on account of her age. Regardless of the reason, twenty-six weeks later her unemployment benefits ran out and she had yet to find a job.
"What are you going to do now?" her worried daughter asked. "How will you pay your bills?"
"I've got my savings, and I'm old enough now that I can withdraw money from my retirement fund and not be penalized. Of course, I'd like to keep that as a last resort. If I can't find a job—even a part-time one—my savings will tide me over until I'm sixty-two. Then I can take early retirement."
"But that will mean getting less money."
"Well, I'll just have to learn to live within my means. No more shopping sprees, looking for things to spend my money on. I'll just pay my bills and buy the necessities."
The situation sounded worse than it actually was. As long as she had access to the Internet and cable television, Rhonda would be happy. If things got really desperate, she could fall back on her library card!
With no unemployment checks coming, the still unemployed woman took another look at the impulse items that were cluttering up her rooms and wondered how much money she could get for them on eBay. She picked up the 1996 Happy Holiday Barbie, exquisitely dressed in a fur-trimmed burgundy and gold gown, and wondered what it would sell for.
Since I paid thirty-five for it back in '96, I ought to get at least fifty for it now, she thought optimistically. Maybe more. It's a special edition, after all, and it's never been removed from the box.
Rhonda was disheartened to see that there were over two thousand of the same doll up for auction or immediate sale. Of those that had bidders, the prices were way below what she had expected: less than five dollars in most cases.
How does anybody make money this way? she wondered. After paying listing fees and having eBay and PayPal take out their cut, it doesn't pay! I'd do better off having a garage sale.
* * *
By watching her spending and being less generous with Christmas gifts, Rhonda made it through the holiday season and the winter months. When the spring came, and she had yet to find a job, she ran an ad in the paper and put signs around the neighborhood advertising a yard sale. She priced the items on the high side, knowing shoppers loved to haggle. At the end of the day, there were only a handful of items left. When she counted the bills and change in the pockets of her apron, she was surprised to see that she had made more than five hundred dollars.
And I didn't have to find shipping boxes and cart everything down to the post office!
In the wake of the success of her first yard sale, Rhonda cleaned out her house from basement to attic, including the garage. A month later she hosted a second sale and took in even more money. To her surprise, she made an excellent salesperson. Unfortunately, she had depleted her supply of items to sell.
With no job opportunities on the horizon, Rhonda decided she would try her hand at buying and selling other people's unwanted items. Throughout the months of May and June, she spent her weekends traveling around eastern Massachusetts looking for bargains. She made it a practice of visiting garage sales first thing in the morning to pick up the best deals and returning to the same homes late in the afternoon, a time when sellers were willing to part with items at ridiculously low prices just to get rid of them.
During the first two weekends of July, Rhonda sold the items she had bought the previous months, making a substantial profit. By the end of the summer, she was not only paying her bills from her earnings, but she was also able to put some money back into her savings account.
The following year, Rhonda took a gamble that she prayed would pay off. She withdrew the money from her retirement fund, mortgaged her house and purchased a storefront in Falmouth, at the southern end of Cape Cod. After her son-in-law, a contractor, added a faux Tudor front to the building, she hung out a sign identifying her new second-hand store as Ye Olde Curiosity Shoppe. Rhonda hoped that given the store's touristy location, its Dickensian name and British décor, she would be able to charge top dollar for her garage sale items.
Owning a store brought new challenges. In order to make a profit, she would have to keep the place open seven days a week. That left her no time to search for new stock. The solution to the problem was an easy one: Rhoda hired a responsible young woman to work behind the counter on weekends, giving her time to visit flea markets and yard sales. As her shop's sales increased, she expanded her searches to estate sales and overstock auctions.
Thankfully, with a little research, Rhonda developed a knack for selecting marketable items. While toys from the Fifties and Sixties always sold well, she knew that a mint condition set of the Remco Littlechap Family dolls—Dr. John, his wife Judy and their daughters, Lisa and Libby—would bring in enough money to cover the electric bill for the month whereas a number five pony tail Barbie might sell for only a hundred to a hundred and fifty dollars.
Ye Olde Curiosity Shoppe was not just a vintage doll store. The display cases were filled with die cast vehicles, Colorforms, board games, erector sets, 45 rpm records, Lincoln logs and Tonka trucks.
"It's funny how many people my age want to buy things they remember from their childhood," Rhonda told Chelsea Bullard, her twenty-three-year-old part-time employee.
"It's not just baby boomers who shop here," Chelsea said. "People of all ages collect vintage toys, not to mention people who own bars and restaurants that have retro themes."
Among the items that sold well were Halloween decorations from the Fifties: papier-mâché jack-o-lanterns, Kirchhof metal noisemakers, Beistle cardboard cutouts and Rosbro plastic figurines. Vintage Christmas decorations were also popular including blown glass ornaments, bubble lights, wooden nutcrackers and angel tree toppers.
"What really surprises me," Rhonda commented while she and Chelsea were putting new items on display after the busy Fourth of July weekend, "is how many people don't know the value of the things they own. I went to a yard sale last week and bought a 1960 Ford Thunderbird Matchbox car for seventy-five cents and then turned around and sold it for fifty dollars!"
"I know what you mean," the young woman said. "My grandmother threw out my mother's Barbie dolls when my mom was a teenager. And not just the dolls. She also threw away a clothes case filled with the early outfits and accessories!"
"I'll bet your mother wishes she'd kept all those old toys."
"Oh, yeah! At least she didn't make the same mistake with us. She kept all my dolls and my brother's action figures. She's even got the Fisher Price play sets we had when we were toddlers."
"Where did she find room to put them all in her condo?"
"They're in a storage unit in Yarmouth. Hey! There's an idea for you. Did you ever consider bidding on a storage unit that's up for auction?"
"No, I didn't."
"You should. It's a lot like playing the lottery, except you have a better chance of winning. One of my neighbors paid a hundred and fifty dollars for a storage unit that contained, among other items, a seven-hundred-dollar set of golf clubs."
"Is there any way of learning beforehand what might be inside the units?" Rhonda asked.
"No, but I look at it this way. There must be something of value inside. Why else would people bother renting a storage unit? Why not just toss the stuff out if it isn't worth anything?"
Chelsea had a good point. After stocking the display cases, Rhonda went to her office where she sat down at her computer and compiled a list of self-storage facilities on Cape Cod as well as in and around Plymouth, Taunton, New Bedford and Fall River. Once she printed out the list of names, addresses and phone numbers, she began contacting the managers to inquire about possible auctions. Only one, located in Wareham, had an auction scheduled before the end of the summer. It was being held the first weekend in August.
Three weeks from now, she thought and penciled in the date on her desk calendar.
* * *
Since Rhonda did not want to attend the auction by herself, and Chelsea was needed to mind the store, she asked her neighbor, Bob Lewiston, a retired police officer, to accompany her.
"I really appreciate your coming with me," she said when the two of them stopped for coffee along the way. "I dreaded going alone."
"Why? Are you afraid if you open the door on a storage unit, you might find the remains of Jimmy Hoffa?" Bob teased.
"I'm not afraid there'll be a body inside, but I don't know what else I might find. What if there's stolen property or, worse, drugs? Didn't Heisenberg keep his crystal meth in a storage locker on Breaking Bad?"
"Actually, the money was in a storage unit, not the meth. Don't you remember the scene where Walter's wife, Skyler, opens the door of the unit and shows him the neatly wrapped stacks of bills inside?"
"That's right. They had too much money to launder."
"I don't think you need to worry about finding drug money in a storage unit. I'm pretty sure drug dealers pay their monthly fees."
There were about a dozen people in attendance and four units being auctioned off on a cash only basis. Rhonda had set a limit of two hundred dollars and would not spend a penny more. The first sold for three hundred, the second for two seventy-five.
When the third and largest unit was offered, a skittish man of below average height and above average weight eagerly placed the first bid, and each time someone bid against him, he quickly increased the amount.
"Looks like we've got a real bidding war going on," Rhonda said.
"I'm an antique dealer from Provincetown," the fidgety little man said between bids. "After driving all the way down here, I don't intend to go home empty-handed."
When the bidding hit two twenty-five, Rhonda bowed out, but the price continued to rise. The unit eventually sold for eight hundred dollars.
"I had no idea it would cost so much," the antique dealer mumbled to himself. "I hope I have enough money left ...."
The bargain-hunters followed the auctioneer to the last of the four units. Again, bidding opened at fifty dollars. The man from Provincetown immediately raised his hand.
"I've got fifty. Do I hear seventy-five?" the auctioneer called.
The bidding continued at a brisk pace: one hundred, one twenty-five, one fifty .... When Rhonda Engels raised her hand at two hundred, she fully expected the antique dealer to bid two twenty-five. Instead, the man was frantically searching his wallet for hidden cash.
"Two hundred going once," the auctioneer announced. "Two hundred going twice."
Rhonda's heart rate accelerated in anticipation.
"Sold for two hundred."
The gavel came down, and once the auctioneer received payment, he used a bolt cutter to remove the padlock.
* * *
"I feel like a contestant on Let's Make a Deal," Rhonda laughed. "I hope I don't get zonked!"
When Bob lifted the overhead door, he revealed cardboard cartons stacked five feet high, six feet wide and ten feet deep.
"Looks like you hit the jackpot!"
"I'll reserve my opinion until I discover what's inside the boxes."
Bob took his pen knife out of his pocket and sliced open the packing tape on the nearest one.
"Toys," he said, handing her a teddy bear.
"This has seen better days," Rhonda pronounced after examining the stuffed animal. "It's got one eye missing, and it's lost most of its fur—probably put through the laundry too many times."
Bob cut open three more boxes, all of which contained children's books and toys, most of them, thankfully, in better condition than the teddy bear.
Rhonda looked at her watch. It was past one.
"Why don't we go get something to eat and head home?" she suggested. "I'm going to hire a U-Haul truck and pay some of Chelsea's friends to bring this stuff to my shop. I'll unpack the rest of the boxes there."
"Makes sense. You can put the good stuff directly on the shelves and toss the garbage in the dumpster."
As Bob closed the overhead door and secured it with a new padlock purchased from the auctioneer, Rhonda noticed the antique dealer from Provincetown standing in front of his own unit. After spending eight hundred dollars, he hadn't even bothered opening it.
"Find anything good?" he called to them.
"Nothing but old toys so far," Bob replied. "Aren't you interested in what's inside yours?"
"Sure, I am. I'm waiting for my partner to arrive. He's much younger and in far better shape than I am. I do the buying; he does the physical work."
* * *
A look of sadness came over Rhonda's face as she and her neighbor drove east along Route 6, toward Buzzards Bay.
"What's wrong?" Bob asked.
"I was thinking about the owners. They were most likely parents who kept their children's toys for sentimental reasons. I wonder what else I'll find in the boxes. Maybe baby clothes and school photographs, souvenirs from family vacations, old letters .... Part of me wishes I could return everything to them."
"You run a business. You can't get sentimental over this stuff."
"I just wonder how I'd feel if my life was packed away in boxes in a storage unit, and some stranger began going through them, deciding what to keep and what to throw away."
Bob stopped at a seafood restaurant in Bourne, nothing fancy, just good food at reasonable prices. Rhonda finished her clam chowder—New England, never Manhattan!—and was waiting for her lobster roll.
"I'm glad to see you're in a better mood," Bob observed.
"Yeah. I was letting my imagination run wild, feeling sorry for people who couldn't afford to pay their storage fees and had to sacrifice their treasured mementos. For all I know, the owners might be playing bingo in a nursing home in Brockton or lying on a beach in Boca Raton. Either way, I don't believe losing a bunch of old toys is going to be a major tragedy in their lives."
By the time the waitress brought out their main course, Rhonda had forgotten about the storage unit and was listening with rapt attention to Bob's account of the time he met Ted Kennedy at a bar on Martha's Vineyard.
* * *
When she wasn't waiting on customers, Chelsea helped Rhonda unpack the boxes from the storage unit.
"More toys," the young woman announced when she opened another box. "I think these people must have had stock in Toys R Us."
"Something's not right," Rhonda said with a frown. "Look at the difference in age between these toys. Here's a Stretch Armstrong figure from the Seventies, a My Little Pony unicorn from the Eighties, a Tamagotchi from the Nineties and a Monster High doll that can't be more than a few years old. I doubt these toys belonged to children from only one family."
"Maybe the older toys belonged to the parents. My uncle has his father's Lionel trains, and my mother would have passed her dolls on to me if my grandmother hadn't thrown them out."
Rhonda accepted Chelsea's explanation. It seemed logical, but she still felt there was something odd about the eclectic collection, spanning more than four decades.
Expecting another box of old toys, Rhonda was surprised to find one filled with book bags, backpacks and lunch boxes. The next four cartons contained similar items. Again, there was at least a forty-year difference in age, from a Seventies Partridge Family lunchbox to a Disney Cars backpack.
"I'm beginning to think these parents never threw anything out," Rhonda laughed.
Chelsea heard the bell above the front door jingle and went to greet the customer who had entered the store, leaving her employer to open the next box alone.
"Clothes," Rhonda said with disappointment.
Again, some of the garments went back forty years while others were much newer.
I wonder what kind of market there is in second-hand kids clothing, she thought, looking at the assortment of pants, tee shirts and dresses.
As she was unfolding a denim jacket, she noticed a name tag sewn into the collar.
Richie DeLeo.
There was something vaguely familiar about the name, but Rhonda could not remember where she had heard it. Perhaps it was someone who had gone to school with her daughter.
The bell above the front door jingled again, and moments later Chelsea returned to the stockroom.
"Good news. I just sold the Flexible Flyer sled. Now we'll have more room for the new stuff. Find any treasure in those boxes?"
"No, just clothes."
"You sound like me when I was a kid opening presents on Christmas morning," Chelsea laughed. "I was always so disappointed when I unwrapped a box only to discover it contained a pair of pajamas or a sweater!"
"For now, let's just stack the boxes of clothes near the back door. I'll drop them off at the Good Will drop box on the way home—unless, of course, little Richie DeLeo wants his jacket back."
It was a joke, not even a very funny one, and while Rhonda did not expect her sales clerk to break out in peals of laughter, she had not anticipated the look of shock on Chelsea's face either.
"Richie DeLeo?"
"Yeah. I found a denim jacket with his name on a label sewn into the collar. Why? Is he a friend of yours?"
"Don't you know who he is?"
"No, but I did think the name sounded familiar."
"He's the little boy who went missing from Breakwater Beach about six years ago."
Now Rhonda fit the name with a face she had seen on television.
"I remember. The mother was buying him an ice cream cone, and when she turned around, he was gone. Didn't the police believe the boy drowned?"
"They never found out what happened to him. Some people even hinted that the mother had something to do with her son's disappearance."
"Do you suppose these were his toys?" Rhonda asked, suddenly feeling as ghoulish as a grave robber.
"That might explain why the parents put everything in storage. They didn't want to part with anything that belonged to him, but neither did they want a daily reminder of their loss."
"There are girl's clothes and toys here, too. So the parents must have had more than one child."
Chelsea reached into her pocket for her iPhone, googled Richie DeLeo's name and quickly scanned the Wikipedia entry.
"No, he was an only child. In fact, his mother was a single parent."
"I wonder who the other stuff belonged to then."
At Chelsea's suggestion, the two women began going through the pockets and compartments in the backpacks and book bags.
"I found something," Rhonda announced, taking a computer printout out of the zippered flap of an Elmo backpack.
"What is it?"
"It's a report card from an elementary school in Danbury, Connecticut. It's for Jeannelle Blakely, and it's dated November 1994."
Chelsea went back to her iPhone.
"Holy shit!" she exclaimed, and then looked up at Rhonda with wide, frightened eyes and asked, "Do you believe in coincidences?"
"Why?"
"Jeannelle Blakely has been missing for the past twenty years. She was last seen at the Cape Cod Mall in Hyannis."
"Twenty years? That means she disappeared about the same time as that report card was issued."
"I've got a bad feeling about this," Chelsea said.
"Don't touch anything else. I'm going to call my friend, Bob Lewiston. He's a retired police officer. He'll know what we should do."
* * *
"What's in the rest of these boxes?" Detective Enrique Rivera asked.
"I don't know," Rhonda replied. "Once we found Jeannelle Blakely's report card in her backpack, I told my assistant not to touch anything."
"Were you here when the report card and jacket were discovered?" the detective asked Bob.
"No. Rhonda is a friend of mine, and she phoned me for advice after finding them."
"I'm going to have all these boxes taken to the police station where our forensics team can go over them for prints and fibers. If we don't find anything, they'll be returned to you."
A week passed before Rhonda heard from the police again. Detective Rivera phoned her one morning and asked her to stop by the station and be fingerprinted.
"Why? You don't think I had anything to do with abducting those children?"
"No, of course not. We've managed to pull a number of prints off the boxes. We want to eliminate yours and your employee's."
Bob, whose prints were also needed for elimination purposes because he had handled several of the boxes on the day of the auction, arrived at the police station just moments after Rhonda did. Since Bob was a former police officer and a personal friend, Detective Rivera was willing to update him on the progress of the case.
"We've gone through the rest of the boxes," he reported. "They contained more clothes and toys. There were also shoes and a few schoolbooks. We were able to link the textbooks to two children who disappeared in Rhode Island and one in New Hampshire. Given the personal effects of five abducted children were in that storage unit, we began a more thorough examination of the remaining items. I've been working with the National Center for Missing and Exploited Children to compare the articles of clothing with descriptions of the clothes missing children were wearing when they were last seen. So far, we've found more than a dozen matches."
"Oh, my God!" Rhonda exclaimed.
"This has got to be the work of a serial killer who preys on children," Bob said. "That storage unit was where he kept his souvenirs."
"Easy, Bob," the detective cautioned. "While we can assume the children were abducted, we have no bodies. Officially, they're missing, not dead."
"Why not just check the lease at the storage facility to see who rented the unit?" Rhonda asked.
"We did. The lease was taken out back in eighty-three. The person paid the first month rental and the security deposit with cash. Since then, the monthly payment was paid with money orders sent though the mail—no return address."
"What about the name on the money orders?"
"The same as the name on the rental agreement: John Smith."
Rhonda frowned and asked, "So you've reached a dead end in the investigation?"
"Not exactly. We know our suspect faithfully paid the rental fee for thirty-one years. Then six months ago, the money orders stopped coming. The vital records clerk is checking death certificates from around that time. There's a good possibility John Smith is dead."
* * *
After driving home from garage sales in Truro and Wellfleet, Rhonda stopped by Ye Olde Curiosity Shoppe to unload her station wagon.
"How's it going today?" she asked Chelsea.
"It's been busy all morning. I haven't even had the time to stop for a cup of coffee."
"I'll keep an eye on things here. Why don't you go get some lunch?"
There were four customers in the store, three women who were reminiscing about their childhood over a Thumbelina doll and a man who was kneeling in front of a display case of action figures. After one of the women purchased the doll, she and her friends exited the store, leaving Rhonda alone with the male customer.
"Can I help you find something?" she asked.
The man stood up, and Rhonda recognized him at once.
"I know you. You're the antique dealer from Provincetown. I saw you at an auction in Wareham."
"Yes. You bid against me for a storage unit. Did you find these Star Wars figures in those boxes?"
"No, I didn't."
"The reason I ask is that your husband said you'd found toys."
"Husband? Oh, no. He's just a friend of mine. Did you find anything of value in the unit you won? Since you paid eight hundred dollars for it, I certainly hope you did."
"There were a number of items: some old jewelry, silver candlesticks, Lenox china."
"You're lucky the police didn't confiscate your goods like they did mine."
"Police?"
The color drained from the man's face, and he looked as though he were about to go into cardiac arrest. Rhonda suddenly feared she had said too much.
"Yes, something about ... ah ..."—her mind desperately sought a plausible lie—"drugs ... crystal meth, I think. You don't look at all well. Would you like me to call an ambulance?"
"No, but if I might have a glass of water?"
"Certainly."
Rhonda turned and took two steps in the direction of the shop's bathroom. She sensed movement behind her and felt a sharp pain on the back of her head. Moments later she fell to the floor.
* * *
The first thing Rhonda was aware of when she came to was the cold, hard surface beneath her. The second was the darkness that surrounded her. Then other sensations crowded her brain: her hands were bound behind her; her legs were tied together at the ankles; there was a gag in her mouth that prevented her from screaming for help.
Where am I? What has happened to me?
She was lying on what appeared to be concrete rather than wood or tile.
Am I in someone's cellar or garage? How did I get here?
These were all good questions but none to which she had any answers.
I've got to get out of here.
When Rhonda tried to sit up, she felt a piercing pain in the back of her head, accompanied by a wave of nausea. After several minutes, the queasiness passed, and she tried to move again.
If I could just get my hands free ....
As she fought against the rope wrapped around her wrists, her fingers brushed against a cardboard box. Like a person doing a jigsaw puzzle, she carefully put the pieces together: the antique dealer in her shop, the cardboard box, the lack of light in the closed space.
I'm in a storage unit, most likely the one the man from Provincetown won at auction.
Having come to that first conclusion, the rest of the pieces soon fell into place.
The antique dealer wanted to buy two storage units that day but didn't have enough cash on him at the time. He had paid eight hundred dollars for the larger of the two—much more than he'd anticipated spending—and Rhonda had outbid him on the smaller one. He didn't bid on either of the other two units that were available.
He knew which ones he wanted. That means he knew what was inside of them, and the only way he could know that is ....
Rhonda was distracted by the sound of an approaching car. When the engine stopped and the car door opened, she prayed the driver was a person who rented one of the other storage units. With two hundred of them in the complex, the odds were in her favor. Luck, however, was against her. She heard a key in the padlock and saw the overhead door slowly rise.
It was nearly as dark outside as it was inside the storage unit. A single spotlight mounted on the roof of the opposite building shone in the parking area, its beam outlining the man who had opened the door. Rhonda wasn't the least bit surprised to see the short, heavyset frame of the man from Provincetown.
The antique dealer shined his flashlight on her face, temporarily blinding her.
"You're still alive?" he asked, disappointment in his voice. "I was hoping the blow to the head was enough to finish you off."
Her jailer stepped inside, turned on the single overhead light bulb and shut the door behind him.
Bending over to remove the gag from her mouth, he said, "Before I kill you, I want some answers."
"Why should I tell you anything?"
"Because if you cooperate, I'll be quick, and you'll suffer a minimal amount of pain. On the other hand, if you choose to be difficult, I'll make it most unpleasant for you."
"What do you want to know?"
"Why did the police take the contents of the storage unit?"
"I found a report card in one of the backpacks and a label sewn into a jeans jacket that identified the owners as missing children. Naturally, I phoned the police."
"Damn it all!" he cursed.
"You bid on those two units because you knew what was inside of them," Rhonda accused her captor. "They belonged to you all along. Why didn't you just pay the rental fee on them and avoid their being auctioned off?"
"There's a good idea! Why didn't I think of that?" the man said sarcastically. "Because I was in the hospital, you damn fool! I was hit by a car and hospitalized for more than five months. By the time I got out, I didn't have enough money to bring my account up to date and prevent the units from being auctioned off. My only hope of getting my things back was to bid on them. But all I could get my hands on was a thousand dollars, so I couldn't top your two-hundred-dollar bid."
He walked over to the stack of boxes lining the walls of the unit, and reaching out his right hand, lovingly caressed the cardboard.
"A lifetime of memories," he said, more to himself than to Rhonda. "And now I'll have to part with them. It won't take the cops long to find this place. I'll never have enough time to rent another storage unit and transport the boxes."
"If you're going to run from the police and leave all this evidence behind, then why kill me?"
"Partly because you can identify me, but mostly because I hate you for defiling my possessions."
"Those toys and clothes didn't belong to you. What happened to the children who owned them? Where are Richie DeLeo and Jeannelle Blakely? What have you done with them?"
In a fit of fury, the man grabbed his captive by her hair and yanked her to her feet.
"Don't you dare speak their names!" he shouted.
The pain in her head was too much for Rhonda to bear. She swooned and fell back onto a stack of boxes. The uppermost ones crashed to the ground, and their contents spilled out onto the concrete floor. Rather than stuffed toys, blue jeans and backpacks, the cardboard cartons in the larger unit contained the tiny human bones of children.
Rhonda's piercing scream was born of a mixture of fear, pain and sorrow, the kind of hopeless, crushing sorrow one feels when the missing are found dead. After several moments, her throat began to ache from its efforts and she closed her mouth. The screaming, however, continued, a mournful, terror-filled wail. It was not her own voice but that of the man from Provincetown.
The semitransparent figures of more than three dozen children crowded around him, their tiny hands clutching at him, intent on tearing him apart. As Rhonda watched the macabre tableau being enacted in front of her, a second car pulled into the parking lot. The unlocked door of the storage unit was yanked open, and Bob Lewiston, his revolver drawn, stared in disbelief at the ghosts of dead children tormenting their killer.
"Over here," Rhonda cried. "Untie my hands."
The serial child killer took no notice of the former policeman's movements. Even if he had, he would have been helpless to act. The ghosts of Richie DeLeo and Jeannelle Blakely were having a tug of war with his right arm, which was soon dislocated from his shoulder.
"He was going to kill me," Rhonda cried, seeking the safety of Bob's strong, protective arms.
"I don't think you have anything to fear from him now," her rescuer replied as he watched a nearly naked man being ripped apart by phantom youngsters.
Finally, the killer fell to his knees. He was now at the children's level and at their mercy. The vengeful spirits swarmed over him, like an army of ants devouring a tasty sweet morsel dropped on the ground. They continued their relentless attack until there was little left of their victim except scattered body parts lying in a pool of blood.
* * *
"It stopped bleeding," Bob pronounced after examining the wound on Rhonda's head. "But I still think you ought to go to the hospital and have a doctor take a look at you."
"I'll be fine. It doesn't even hurt anymore now that I've taken some aspirin. I don't suppose you have any sleeping pills on you, too?"
"After what we witnessed tonight, we could both probably use them."
"I still can't believe you found me there. It was a miracle!"
"More like the result of good police work. When Enrique couldn't tie any recently deceased persons to the storage unit, I naturally came to the conclusion that the owner was still alive. I had a hunch—yes, policemen do get hunches—that the owner might have been one of the bidders at the auction. By process of elimination, I decided the so-called antique dealer was the likely candidate."
"What do you mean 'so-called antique dealer'?"
"I gave his description to the police sketch artist and took the drawing up to Provincetown. I not only went into every antique store, but other shops and restaurants as well. No one had ever seen his face before."
"So it's likely that not only did he lie about being an antique dealer, but that he wasn't even from Provincetown."
"Exactly."
"And if he lied about his reason for bidding on the storage units ...."
"Then he had another, more compelling reason for wanting to spend eight hundred dollars on what normally would have brought in three or four hundred, tops."
"He knew the bodies of his victims were inside," Rhonda said. "He would have spent every cent he had to keep them hidden."
"I figured what was in that large storage unit," Bob continued, "was as damning—if not more so—than what you'd found in the smaller one. Legally, I had no right to be there. I didn't have a warrant. Hell, I'm not even on the force anymore. But I had to know what he was hiding there, so I took a chance. Ironically, if I'd been caught breaking into the unit, I would have been the one in trouble with the police."
Rhonda hugged him and kissed him on the cheek.
"I'm really glad you stuck your neck out. If you hadn't ...."
"You're safe now," Bob said, holding her tighter. "He'll never hurt anyone again."
"Thank God, it's all over!"
"We still have to contact the police and report his assault on you."
"If we do, then we'll have to tell them what happened in the storage unit. Do you honestly think anyone will believe us?"
"Who knows? But one thing is for certain. Neither one of us has the imagination to make up a story that preposterous."
I would never have guessed who rented this storage unit!
