Praying for Sleep

sort filled the air. It was like wind over a reed, like someone imitating an oboe. Terrible! She looked at the trail at her feet and saw more blood.
    Then Hrubek slipped through the cave opening. Lis turned and raced down the path. No idea where she was going, not really thinking, she simply ran. Once out of the main chamber she fled down a long corridor, about eight feet high. Hrubek was somewhere behind her. As she ran she noticed the tunnel was growing smaller. By now it had shrunk to six feet, and the sides were closing in. Once she slammed into a rock, cutting her forehead and leaving a scar that still remained. By then the chamber had narrowed down to five feet and she was running crouched over. Then, four feet. Soon she was crawling.
    Ahead of her the tunnel grew even smaller though on the other side of a very narrow opening it seemed to widen and grow brighter. But escaping that way would mean crawling through a tunnel that was no more than twelve or so inches high. With Hrubek right behind her.
    “The thought of being, well, exposed to him like that. I mean, wearing just my swimsuit . . . I couldn’t do it. I turned to my left and crawled through a larger entrance.”
    It was black, completely black, but she felt cool air circulating and assumed it was a large space. She climbed inside, feeling her way along the smooth floor. Looking back she could see the entrance—it was slightly lighter than the surrounding walls. Slowly it darkened then grew less dark again, and she heard a hissing sound. He was in this small cave with her. She lay flat on the ground and bit a finger to keep silent while she sobbed.
    “You have no idea what noise is until you’ve been in a place like that. I was sure my heartbeat or the sound of blood in my ears would give me away. I think I could hear my own tears falling on the floor of the cave.”
    All the while Hrubek was shuffling around her. He passed her, no more than five feet away. Then he paused and sniffed the air and muttered, “There’s a woman in here. I can smell her pussy.”
    Lis ran. She couldn’t bear it any longer. “I scrambled to the opening and turned back down the narrow corridor, the way I’d come. That is, I thought I did. But somehow I took a wrong turn.”
    In one sense it was lucky. The light was better here and the roof of the cave high. She saw discarded cigarettes and beer cans—which led her to believe she was heading toward an exit. She kept moving toward the light.
    “Then I felt a breeze stirring and way up ahead I heard running water. I ran toward it as fast as I could. Then I turned the corner. That’s where I found the body.” She gazed through the misty windows into the yard, now filled with a blustery wind. “I didn’t recognize it at first. There was too much blood.”

17
    Robert Gillespie lay on the cave floor.
    “He was twisted like a rag doll and had a huge gash in his head. But he wasn’t dead.”
    She’d taken Robert’s hand and leaned close, urging him to keep breathing. She’d get help, she said. But then she heard footsteps. Ten feet away Hrubek stood staring at them. He was smiling cynically, muttering.
    “He was talking,” Lis told Kohler, “about conspirators.”
    Stumbling backwards Lis landed on her purse. Inside, she felt a knife. She’d packed it for the picnic, she explained, wrapping it in a paper towel and placing it in her bag so no one would reach blindly into the picnic basket and cut themselves. She pulled it out now and ripped the towel away from the blade—it was very sharp, a Chicago Cutlery, nine inches long. She pointed it at Hrubek and told him to keep back. But he just kept walking at her, saying, “Sic semper tyrannis!” again and again. Her nerve broke. She dropped the knife and ran.
    “That was the knife that he used?” Kohler asked. “I remember reading that the victim was stabbed as well as beaten. Sexually mutilated too.”
    After a moment Lis answered, “Robert was badly hurt but he probably could’ve survived. According to the evidence at the trial they think he would’ve recovered from the rock blows. He died from the stabbing.” She paused. “And the mutilation? Yes, Hrubek stabbed Robert in the groin. A number of times.”
     
    Only fifty feet away Lis found the exit and scrabbled through it. She collapsed on the ground and caught her breath. Then she headed into the canyon. But after running only a dozen yards she pulled up with a fierce cramp in her side. Hrubek was