by Jack Ketchum
She moved back to the dark protection of the hedges, moved carefully between and into them and lay down on her uninjured left side and waited for him to return.
A few moments later she smelled dog and heard a snuffling sound and peered out from between the hedges. She saw it large and shaggy sniffing at the base of the streetlight a block away, sniffing and moving on along the grass between the sidewalk and the street and headed in her direction.
She crept back farther and hunkered down.
He parked two doors down from Jennifer’s house and reloaded the rifle and the single empty chamber in the Ladysmith. He climbed out of the car and stuck the Ladysmith in his belt and grabbed hold of the rifle. He listened for noises coming from the trunk but there were none. Maybe she was dead of exhaust fumes. It happened. He closed the car door and walked up the street. Opened up their door and came upon a family tableau.
Mrs. Griffith was just putting the phone down, she was standing by the sofa and the end table, a worried expression on her face, and she struck him as so old, he’d never realized how old these two fuckers were, old enough to be her grandparents not her parents which of course they weren’t anyway and Mr. Griffith sitting skinny and hunched and balding in the armchair was the first to see him, Mr. Griffith startled, rising and you never knew not even with these old guys so he shot him first with the rifle assuming the stance and firing, shattering his glasses he was getting all eye-shots tonight and Mr. Griffith falling back into the chair like somebody’d pushed him except his eye was a wide red hole pumping blood all over his shirt. Then Jennifer was running up the stairs which was stupid and fine with him so he turned to Mrs. Griffith who was screaming high and whiney and holding her face in both withered white hands which looked deformed to him for some reason and he didn’t even bother aiming, he just pointed the rifle at her midsection and shot her in the stomach and she went down onto the carpet writhing, moaning, trying to crawl.
He ejected the cartridge and stepped over her and climbed the stairs.
Jennifer was in her bedroom. He tried the doorknob and the door was locked. No problem. He slung the rifle over his shoulder and pulled out the Ladysmith and shot twice at the lock just like they do in the movies the Ladysmith loud as hell in the hallway and kicked the door and again, just like in the cop pictures the door flew open and there was Jennifer at the wide-open window, half in and half out of the window and he crossed the floor in three steps and grabbed her arm and hauled her in.
“Where you going, Jen?”
He thought she said something or maybe she was just whimpering, but his ears were ringing so he couldn’t hear. He pulled her to the doorway and out into the hall and down the stairs. She didn’t fight him. She was scared and crying and now he could just barely hear her say, don’t hurt me, please Ray please which was exactly the kind of thing he wanted to hear from her. Mrs. Griffith was crawling toward the kitchen, trying to make it to the back door he guessed. The blood trail behind her skinny legs looked like the kind a slug or a snail would make only red.
He decided not to shoot her again, to give her a fighting chance.
She was old. She’d be dead soon anyway. Fuck her.
He hauled Jennifer out the door and down the street to the car. She was sobbing and she looked like hell, her face all red and blotchy. When they got to the car he put the .38 to her cheek and she stood there while he fished out the keys and opened the trunk and surprise surprise! Miss Long Tall Sally was still with them not dead of carbon monoxide poisoning blinking out at them covered with dried and drying blood and trying to get up so he stood back to where he could shoot both bitches if he had to.
“You stay right there, hear me? Jennifer, get in. You’ll be nice and cozy inside. Kind of a slumber party. But hey, you don’t really know one another do you? Sally, Jennifer. Jennifer, Sally. Get in Jen. Don’t make me shoot you in front of the fucking neighbors.”
She did as he said, the two of them curled up playing spoons in his trunk. He had to smile. It was a tight fit. Kind of like boots were a tight fit when you first bought them but then you broke them in.
He was breaking them in.
He closed the trunk. He got into the car and drove away.
The patrol car pulled up to the Griffith house five minutes later. The front door was open wide and Officer Bill Klossner thought what the hell? and then oh shit because he’d been standing right there at the desk listening when the lieutenant called to warn them.
They had the area roped off and were working crowd control on a lot of curious teenagers and taking statements from the kids who claimed to have seen the shooting as Schilling pulled into the lot. He talked with Fisher and Bartel, the first team of officers on the scene and the two kids who’d ID’d Pye, a tall sandy-haired kid with a brush cut named, appropriately, Sandy Zulof and his girlfriend Barbara Toss both of whom were certain it was Pye because they knew him from the high school parking lot, one of his favorite hangouts when school was in session. They got his car right and his description right down to the mole on his cheek and Schilling had one of the patrol cars take them down to the station to record their statement in full and lifted the tape and stepped inside the perimeter.
Tonianne Primiano’s body lay face-up, her head wedged between the driver’s seat and the brake. Her long dark hair was spread out above her and matted in a pool of blood. She was wearing short cutoff jeans and a tie-dyed red-and-blue T-shirt. Her calves and right forearm still sprawled along the seat of the Volkswagen and her brand-new tennis shoes looked jarringly white and pristine, not a spot of blood anywhere on them nor even a spot of dirt. He looked more closely at the wound and figured it for a .38. The burns made it point-blank range.
Fisher stepped up behind him and told him that forensics was on its way and that the captain was on the radio wanting to speak with him. He walked over to the patrol car and talked into the unit.
“I’m having a real bad evening, Charlie, I gotta tell you.”
“I’m listening.”
“Our boys pull up to the Griffith house and door’s wide open. They go in and there’s Harry Griffith shot dead in his chair and his wife gut-shot, passed out on the kitchen floor.”
“Jennifer Fitch?”
“Not a sign of her. Except the lock on her bedroom door’s been shot too.”
“Is the wife going to make it?”
“Too early to say. The first-aid crew were hopeful. The good news is that the other kid, Tim Bess? He’s safe and sound.”
“Good. Where’s he now?”
“Kid and his parents are sitting right out here in the hall. Figured it was best to just bring ’em on in.”
“He know why he’s there yet?”
“Nope. Not exactly. All our boys told him was that it was for his own safety. All three of them guessed it had something to do with Ray Pye, though. And the kid’s definitely worried about Jennifer Fitch.”
“He should be. Listen, I want to speak to forensics and get a quick look at the car and run through their purses and then I’ll be right over. We’ll seal up the Griffith place and leave it for later. Talking to Tim Bess is top priority now. How are Lenny and Clara holding up?”
“The parents? Nervous. Fine.”
He signed off and replaced the unit and was headed back to the Volkswagen when he saw Ed Anderson’s car pull up beyond the taped-off area and Ed get out and approach one of the officers on crowd control, a new kid he didn’t know. The officer was shaking his head and Ed was jabbing a finger in his face and then pointing to the Volkswagen. Charlie walked over.
“It’s okay. Let him through.”
Ed ducked under the tape.
“You sure you want to see this?”
“I’m sure I don’t want to see this. But I figure I ought to.”
They walked toward the car.
“You’re carrying.”
“Huh?”
“Jacket’s a little heavy. I don’t guess you got bags of peanuts in there. You’re carrying.”
“Okay, Charlie. But I’m not just carrying. I’m out for bear.”
“I shouldn’t be letting you do this, you know.”
“Yeah, I know.”
“Listen, Ed, what I said before . . .”
“What you said before was bullshit. I told you that. You’re not responsible for somebody like Pye. There’s no way in hell you could be. If you didn’t push him over the edge then somebody else would have. I helped you bust up his little party, didn’t I? Blaming yourself or me blaming myself is like putting the blame for all the murder stats on kids watching TV and the movies. It’s bullshit. We didn’t make Pye. Pye made himself.”
Schilling thought that he was right as far as that went but that it didn’t go far enough. He wondered if in his heart his friend felt the same but was only trying to let him off the hook. Because people like Schilling were supposed to unmake people like Pye. Not kick them into gear for yet another set of atrocities.
They looked through the window into the car.
“She was pretty,” Ed said quietly.
“You knew her?”
“Sally pointed her out to me a couple of occasions. She was her best friend since way back when. Sally must feel awful about her.”
He thought that this was the way it was among decent people. People who had respect for life and living. Ed was thinking about Sally as though Sally were still alive even though she might not be and part of what concerned him was the pain she must be feeling for her friend. The dead could not be helped. The living demanded the highest degree of empathy you were capable of committing to them and that was what Ed was doing. It was what made him so different from people like Pye. He reflected that he had not thought of that aspect of the killing at all himself and wondered where Charlie Schilling fit in on the scale of human decency in the range from Ed to Pye.
“It won’t work. I already tried. You can’t get leverage.”
Jennifer was on her hands and knees pushing up with all her strength against the lid of the trunk. Trying desperately to pop it open.
“All you’ll do is hurt yourself.”
She collapsed and rolled to her side. She could feel Sally’s breath on the back of her neck. Along with the other smells she could smell the dried blood on the girl like spoiled meat. Her throat felt raw from the crying and the shouting and the exhaust fumes.
The hysteria was gone. What was left to her was wholly empty.
She felt dazed. The girl behind her was silent.
“He just walked up and shot her? Your friend,” she said.
“Yes. He just walked up and shot her.”
When they came through the double doors Bill and June Richmond were standing at the dispatcher’s booth talking to Jackowitz. Bill looked pale and anxious but his shirt was crisp despite the heat and Ed wondered if he’d changed to come down here. June was observably halfway in the bag, swaying beside him which under the circumstances might be all to the good. They turned when Charlie and Ed walked in and Ed could see his eyes flash. He moved fast for a heavyset man and Ed stepped back and Charlie stepped between them.
“Hold on, Bill.”
“You, you sonovabitch. I knew damn well it was you!”
“I’m sorry, Bill. I probably can’t say anything to you right now except that I care for her very much and I’m very worried.”
“You goddamn lecher!, You’re disgusting! I ought to have your ass thrown in jail.”
“Come on. She’s age-of-consent, Bill,” Charlie said.
“So that makes it okay? This sonovabitch dares to come around here? To come around here now? Throwing it right in my goddamn face?”
“You heard him. He cares what happens to her. We all do. So do I.”
“What? What are you telling me, Charlie? Are you fucking her too?”
They all saw June flinch at that little zinger.
Ed sighed and stepped out from behind him.
“Listen, you’re way out of line here. What beef you’ve got, you’ve got with me and only me. I hope we can talk this through. But I’m thinking we’ve got more important things to deal with now. We’ve got to find Sally. Fast as we can. We need to talk to that boy over there.”
He nodded toward Tim sitting with his parents watching all of this from down the hall.
“That okay with you, Bill?” Charlie said. “Ed’s right. This can wait. Finding Sally can’t. You’ll agree with me on that, right? I want you to let me do my job now, okay?”
They watched the man fold. It wasn’t pretty. It was graceless and small and defeated. June appeared behind him and touched his shoulder as though she knew it was all right and safe for her to do that now and not before. She glanced at Charlie and then at Ed and neither glance was unfriendly.
“He’s right, Bill. Please. We need to get our Sally back. Let them help us do that.”
Her eyes were brimming with tears but she did not appear to notice, as though tears were part of her natural condition. Bill turned and looked at her and at first they could read disgust on his face pompous and ugly and judging her as weak and then watched his expression change and melt to something infinitely more tender and vulnerable. It was like looking at each of them twenty-five years younger. Before whatever had changed them had begun.
“Can we get a room for these folks to rest up awhile, cap?” Charlie said.
“Sure. Come on along with me. We’ll get you some coffee.”
He moved them down the hall past the Bess family and saw Bill hesitate a moment and look at Tim as though wondering what this boy, this stranger, had to do with his daughter and the finding of her and then continue on.
“I want in on this, Charlie.”
“I figured. But you know that Jackowitz will have something to say about that. You’re a citizen now.”
“Whatever Jackowitz has to say, I can answer.”
He smiled. “You probably can. Let’s go talk to Bess.”
Harold Pye was puzzled and a bit confused.
He’d called up to the house fifteen minutes ago to see if Jane might fix him a sandwich. He was starving. Jane had wanted Chinese for dinner and he didn’t really care for Chinese. Chinese to him was like a bunch of crunchy wormy things in salt sauce poured over tasteless chewy rice. The ribs were more like candy than honest meat. He always picked at his food when she ordered Chinese and now he was hungry again so he phoned her.
He could see from the rear window of the office that the lights were on in the bedroom of the house and there were flickering lights in the living room so she had the TV on which meant she was in there. But she wasn’t answering. He’d tried three times already.
He called Ray’s apartment but got no answer there either, though he hadn’t really expected one. He’d seen Ray drive away and hadn’t seen him return again.
But that she wasn’t answering seriously puzzled him. Could she have the TV up that loud? Was there something wrong with the phone? Could something have happened to her, a heart attack, a fall or something? Jane had always had her health but they were no spring chickens, either one of them.
The confusion part was what to do about it. He wasn’t supposed to leave the office. That was the rule. It was Jane’s rule actually. He didn’t really know what she was afraid of—whether it was that somebody would break in and steal the cashbox or that somebody’d want a room and no one would be there to rent them one or or that somebody’d need change for the Coke machine or what the hell it was she worried about. But that was the rule. He’d never broken it.
Meantime his stomach rumbled.
It was the stomach more than anything else, more than any real worry about her, that decided him.
It would only take a minute.
He took the keys for the office off the rack behind him and locked the drawer to the cashbox and turned off the silent TV. Raised the desk gate and walked around the desk and out the door and double-locked it behind him. He crossed the parking lot and walked past Ray’s apartment which was dark. He climbed the walkway
up the hill to the house.
He was going to catch hell for this.
But it would only take him a minute. Maybe five minutes when you figured in the ham and cheese sandwich.
His stomach said it was worth it.
Ray parked the car directly in front of Katherine’s house. The reason was her father. He remembered clearly that her father was a big man, and you had to wonder how many shots it would take to bring a big man down. He remembered the girls in the woods who had taken more shooting than expected.
Kath knew his car. It was possible that she’d see it parked here with the lights on and the motor running from inside the house and come out all angry and pissed at him and then it would be a simple thing and not a more complicated thing like dealing with her father.
He debated.
Tim was scared so he was easy. He told them what had elapsed since Schilling’s visits to him and Jennifer. The telephone calls. Jennifer’s telling Ray off at the motel, throwing the ring at him. Ray punching a hole in his bedroom wall. Even about the hash he’d been muling. Schilling hadn’t promised him immunity. They hadn’t promised him a goddamn thing. They’d Mirandized him and that was all they did. It was as though something wound tight had snapped in the boy and now his propeller was spinning all by itself.
He told them about the night four years ago. His own and Jennifer’s part in it. The boy was in tears by then. The boy was remorseful.
He could see that Ed was moved by that.
Schilling wasn’t. Fuck this kid’s remorse. Two more people were dead because it didn’t kick in quite quick enough. Too little and far too late.
He didn’t show his feelings to the kid. He wasn’t going to show him anything.
“So where would he take them, Tim? Where would he go?”
“His apartment?”
“We’ve had a car there since the first shooting went down. He hasn’t shown.”
He shook his head. “I dunno. Turner’s Pool, maybe? Where he did the . . . other? Jesus, I dunno how he thinks anymore. I used to figure I did. Oh jesus. Oh my god!”
“What?”
“Kath. Katherine Wallace. It wasn’t just Jennifer he was pissed off at, or Sally. He was maybe pissed at Kath more than any of them. See, they’d gone out a few times and Ray really liked her and then Kath’s mother died and she went to California and when she came back she wouldn’t go out with him again, said she didn’t want to get involved with anybody, he was telling me all this shit over at my place too and Ray . . .”