A Thorn Among the Lilies

by Michael Hiebert

  “Me and Dewey have been investigatin’ for you!” Abe said with a big, wide grin.

  “Oh, dear Jesus,” Leah whispered under her breath. Leah’s boy had a tendency to take things a little far and to misinterpret stuff a lot of the time. She started wishing she’d never had the talk with him about serial killers.

  “Is that so?” she asked. “And how have you been doin’ that?”

  “We’ve been followin’ people,” Dewey said matter-of-factly. “Watchin’ for anyone with patterns.”

  “That’s on account of you tellin’ me serial killers followed patterns,” Abe said, still beaming.

  He had a paper bag in his hand and he upturned it onto Leah’s desk, dumping at least a dozen pocket-sized notebooks all over the place. “These are our top twelve suspects,” he said. “All of these people follow the exact same pattern every single day.”

  “At first,” Dewey said, “we were near on positive Isaac Swenson was our prime suspect, but it turned out he don’t always follow the same pattern, so he got dropped from our list. His son, Bubba, is still on it, though.”

  “Bubba’s pattern is simple, but it never changes,” Abe said.

  “We’re pretty near on certain all these folk are serial killers,” Dewey said.

  From beside her, Leah could hear Chris trying his best not to laugh. Leah held her face in her hands, considering that never again would she tell her son anything that related to her work. “Are you two insane?” she asked. “And let me guess . . . you did all this with your bow and arrow and your sword on you.”

  Abe looked down at his bow, strapped across his chest, and then to Dewey with his sword in its scabbard at his side. “What’s wrong with our weapons?”

  “You look like fools.”

  “I think we look like superheroes with super powers.”

  “But you’re not superheroes,” Leah said. “And you certainly have no super powers.”

  “Power is something inside of you . . .” Dewey started, but Abe shushed him.

  “These weapons ain’t stupid,” Abe said. “What if we’d been attacked?”

  “You followed people around while dressed in Halloween costumes,” Leah said. “It’s not the weapons that are the stupid part.”

  “D and D characters,” Abe corrected.

  Leah sighed. “You know what? I don’t even want to have this conversation.”

  “Anyway,” Dewey said, gesturing to the notebooks as though he completely missed the last five minutes, “these are all serial killers we’re pretty certain, but the one you’re lookin’ for is this one.” He pulled a yellow notebook from the mess. “Miss Noelina Waters from Frankie’s Bakery. She’s a total pattern follower, ain’t she, Abe?”

  “She most certainly is. She never changes a thing from day to day.”

  “And,” Dewey said, “the one time she does break her pattern is so she can drive through town in a pickup sometimes.”

  “Yeah,” Abe concurred. “It’s a blue Ford.”

  For a brief moment this actually caught Leah’s attention. Then she realized she was listenin’ to facts gathered from her twelve-year-old boy and his best friend and how ridiculous it was. “Now, how did you boys know about the pickup clue?” Leah asked.

  Abe kicked one shoe into the toe of his other. “I overheard you sayin’ it to Officer Chris.”

  “You mean you was eavesdroppin’ again? How many times do I have to tell you it’s not your job to listen to my conversations?”

  “I’m sorry. It’s just that—”

  “It’s just that you found it interestin’. I do get why you do it, Abe. But you shouldn’t be doin’ it. Was the truck for certain a Ford?”

  Both boys looked at her questioningly and nodded.

  “Okay,” Leah said. “Now I want you boys to listen closely to me. I don’t know how many times I gotta tell you this, but I do not want you two spyin’ on or followin’ any more people in town, do you understand? It’s ridiculous enough that y’all is runnin’ round with weapons. Catchin’ the bad guys is my job, not yours. So, please leave it to me? Besides, all the two of you are fixin’ to do is get hurt. There is a real killer out there. This isn’t make-believe. This isn’t your Dungeons and Dragons.”

  Abe looked down at the pile of notebooks. “So you ain’t gonna follow up any of our leads?”

  “No, Abe, I’m not.”

  “Why do you always think my ideas are dumb?”

  “You just answered your own question.”

  “I don’t understand.”

  “Because, Abe,” Leah said, “your ideas usually are dumb. Not always, sometimes they can be very smart. But when they’re dumb, they seem to be extra dumb to make up for the very smart ones.”

  Abe examined the carpet. “Oh.”

  “So promise me,” Leah said. “No more spyin’?”

  Abe and Dewey both hung their heads. “Okay,” Abe said, “I promise.”

  “And, Dewey? What ’bout you?”

  “What if I just look out my window at people?” he asked.

  “If you’re doin’ it to keep tabs on what people is up to, then it’s spyin’. No more spyin’.”

  “Okay,” he said reluctantly. “I promise.”

  “Now go home and play D and D or whatever you do in the backyard like normal kids,” Leah said.

  Abe and Dewey turned and slunk out the door. Before it closed behind them, Leah heard Dewey say to Abe, “See? I told you we shouldn’t show her our work.”

  “Just shut up,” Abe replied.

  “Don’t take it out on me,” Dewey said.

  They got on their bikes and rode away down Main Street.

  Inside the station, Leah scooped all the notebooks off her desk and into one of the drawers. All of them, that was, except for the yellow one containing the information regarding Noelina Waters from Frankie’s Bakery. When the boys spoke of that one, it had brought a feeling to Leah’s gut she’d been waiting for in this case; a feeling she usually got when she began to get close to solving a mystery or uncovering an important clue.

  But this was something she purposely kept to herself. There was no way she would ever tell those two boys they had done something good by spying on townsfolk.

  CHAPTER 42

  In order to be discreet, Jonathon and Carry met each other at the theater to watch the new movie Beetlejuice, featuring Michael Keaton, who was pretty much the funniest guy in movies these days.

  Carry arrived first, which was a welcome change for her. She wore her favorite winter jacket—she had three—but this one was yellow and she absolutely adored the color yellow. She’d made sure her hair was perfect and she had on the cutest snowman earrings. She felt more confident than she could ever remember.

  It didn’t take long before she saw a tangle of red hair coming down the sidewalk toward her. He even looks good at a distance, she thought. She was finding more and more how much she liked him. He was wearing a different jacket from yesterday. This one looked like an English schoolboy’s jacket with a wide collar and togs instead of buttons going up the front. He was actually wearing sweatpants and suddenly Carry wished she had gone with sweats. They would’ve been a lot warmer than the capris she decided on, even with the long underwear she was wearing underneath.

  When they finally got to the box office and the rest of the people waiting to go in had entered, Jonathon’s hand found Carry’s and their fingers interlaced—and Carry’s butterflies instantly returned. He turned around and bought them both tickets to the show. “Oh, you don’t have to pay for mine,” Carry said. “I brought my own money.”

  “Listen, here’s the rules: When we go on proper dates, I pay. When we go on freaky girlish things, like, say, you drag me to the opera or something—then you can pay. Deal?”

  “Deal.” They shook hands and Carry took her ticket from the plump woman behind the ticket booth.

  “I hear this movie is pretty good,” Carry said.

  “Me too, but then only from TV reviews. I
haven’t really kept in touch with any of my friends over the break.”

  Carry looked at her white booted foot and crossed it over the other. “Yeah, me neither.”

  “Oh, well, one more week and it’s back to school.”

  “Don’t remind me.”

  “You really hate it that much?”

  “Actually, no. I hate going to and coming home from school because this is the year my little brother had to start coming to Satsuma, too. He attends the middle school, but I’m stuck on the same bus ride with him and Dewey. So I have to walk to and from the bus stop with him and his brain-dead friend and listen to them talk about the most inane things along the way. You wouldn’t believe what they find interesting. Then, once on the bus, I try desperately to sit as far away from them as possible, but usually, since we’re the last pickup on the route, we wind up sitting together. It’s a horrifying experience I wouldn’t even wish on my worst enemies.”

  Jonathon laughed as they entered the lobby to the theater. The smell of popcorn swelled in the air. A big smile appeared across Carry’s face. “How ’bout I buy the popcorn?”

  “Okay. We can throw that into the rule book, if you like.”

  They were about tenth in line at the concession stand when Jonathon asked her what time the movie started.

  “Three-ten,” she said.

  He checked his watch. “We have fifteen minutes. I hope there’s no popcorn disaster between now and then. I wonder how long the movie is? What time do you need to be home?”

  “At five for dinner. But if I’m a bit late, my mother won’t care.” Okay, that was a wee bit of a lie. The last time Carry was a bit late, her mother whiled away the time by showing Abe and Dewey how to take apart her gun and teaching them how to shoot with it. Then things got really bad once she got home. Luckily that’s never happened since.

  “Okay, I doubt it’s two hours long. You should be fine.”

  They held hands while they stood in line. Frogs were hopping all around the insides of Carry’s stomach. They’d replaced the butterflies.

  “So what sort of stuff do your brother and his friend talk about that bothers you so much?”

  “Oh God, what don’t they talk about? ‘Hey, Dewey, I wonder how many LEGO bricks it would take to remake our exact houses so we could live in LEGO versions?’ ‘Um,’ Dewey says, ‘I’m guessing at least ten thousand, but it would be so much better. Imagine the flexibility. If you didn’t like a wall where it was, all you’d have to do would be to carefully unclip it from the floor and move it. I’m gonna ask my ma if she minds if I try to redo our house as a LEGO house. I can build it in the backyard and then, when the time came that it was finished, knock down the existing house and move the LEGO house forward onto its same spot. Brilliant!’”

  “You’re kidding,” Jonathon said with a laugh.

  “Why in the name of everything holy would I kid ’bout somethin’ like that? That was a conversation they had a day or two before Christmas break on the way to the bus stop. There I was, half asleep, having to listen to them recite the glories of LEGO architecture.”

  “Wow. It is kind of a brilliant idea, mind you.”

  She elbowed him. “Don’t you start.”

  “Tell me another one.”

  “Geez, I try to block these things from getting into my brain. Now you’re askin’ me to remember ’em?”

  “Just one more.”

  Carry sighed. “Okay. ‘Abe, I came up with the greatest invention in the world.’ ‘Really, Dewey?’ Abe asks. ‘What’s that?’ ‘Reusable wrapping paper. You make it out of stretchy, almost rubbery material that sticks to itself and you can buy it in different sizes. You never cut it or anything, and it’s completely reusable and good for the environment.’ ‘Who cares ’bout the environment?’ asks Abe. ‘One day you will. I was watching this show on TV by this guy called David Suzuki and . . .’ And it just keeps going on and on and on and on . . .”

  “I think you should paste them all in a book, and Dewey is right. David Suzuki is brilliant and one day soon everyone will be forced to worry ’bout the environment.”

  “Oh God, please stop. Don’t be a geek.” She looked up. Please, God, don’t let him be a geek.

  “How does knowin’ stuff make you a geek?” Jonathon asked.

  “It’s what you know. Knowin’ stuff is fine by itself.”

  “Okay, I think I’ll have to ponder that one later. For now, I think you better order whatever you want to eat and drink.” They had come to the front of the concession stand.

  “Wanna just share a large popcorn and soda?” Carry asked Jonathon.

  “Sure.”

  “Diet okay?”

  “Rather not. That same guy—David Suzuki—talks about how bad aspartame is for you. Your brain can be tricked into thinking it’s being given sugar—which it likes—when it’s actually being given aspartame—which will kill it.”

  “Oh, how sweet. God, I asked very politely that you not make him a geek,” she said, glancing up. The person on the other side of the counter just waited for them to order. She looked like she was growing more and more impatient by the minute. “Okay,” Carry said. “Large Coke and large popcorn.” She looked at Jonathon, and said, “With extra butter?”

  Jonathon said, “Of course.”

  “With extra butter.”

  The movie turned out to be hilarious. It had so many good lines, Carry was repeating them all the way back to her place. Jonathon was nice enough to walk her home. They got to the end of her driveway and she asked him the time.

  “Five-forty,” he said.

  “Oh God, I’m late.”

  “Will you get in much trouble?”

  “I dunno, this is new territory for me, just being a bit late. We’ll have to see.”

  “Okay, well, I hope you don’t and if it’s any consolation, I had a terrific time today. Do you mind if I hug you again?”

  Carry tried not to look too disappointed. She was hoping for a kiss.

  “I would expect nothing else, you big geek,” she said, and smiled.

  “I am not a geek.”

  They embraced and the warmth of his body pressed into hers. Time stood still. Carry lost all concern of being late, of school, of . . . of anything. Even the frogs in her tummy took a breather.

  When they broke apart, Carry said, “Wow.”

  “Yeah, I was gonna say that,” Jonathon said. “Wow.”

  “When do I get to see you again?”

  “Well, you’ll probably see me around school and, if you do, don’t be afraid to come up and say hi or even give me one more of those,” Jonathon said. “Otherwise, I have your number. I will call you.”

  “When do I get your number?”

  “I wasn’t sure you wanted it.”

  “I want it.”

  “I have a pen but nothing to write on.”

  “I have a hand but no pen to write on it with.”

  Jonathon gave her the pen and recited his number while she copied it onto her hand. “Good night, Jonathon. Dream of me.”

  “I have since the day we met.”

  God, that boy knew the right things to say.

  He began walking down Cottonwood Lane. Carry watched him with an almost-full moon hanging high above his head and a clear blanket of stars draping down over the world around him.

  There could be no question: She was falling down the rabbit hole.

  Walking into her house, Carry braced for impact. But she was surprised to find her mother not even mad. “You’re forty minutes late for dinner.”

  “I’m sorry; I just got to talking with . . .”

  “Don’t make up a story. I don’t mind forty minutes. Forty minutes late is normal high-school behavior. We didn’t wait for you to eat dinner. Yours is in the fridge. You’ll need to microwave it.”

  And that was that. Carry couldn’t believe it. It was as though her mother took a double dose of Prozac today or something.

  CHAPTER 43

  Lea
h came into the station.

  Chris immediately started reading from a report he held in his hands, the paper looking bright white on his dark brown fingers.

  “Turns out, in the last two years, the Harvest Fair had a lot of folk sign up for the Huntin’ Contest and the Fishin’ Derby,” he told her. He handed her two pages of printed paper. “Of course, a lot of them were duplicates. I didn’t bother listin’ the same names twice. Reckoned that was a waste of time.”

  Leah scanned down the names. “The mayor didn’t attend?” she asked, surprised.

  “Not if he ain’t listed,” Chris said.

  “Strange. See as how he seems like such an avid outdoorsman.”

  Chris just shrugged. “Whatcha gonna do with that now that you got it?” he asked.

  “I’m not too sure,” Leah answered. “But it’s a lead. One of these guys—or women (there were three females listed)—could be our killer. There’s gotta be a way of narrowin’ this down. If this guy’s really leaving a message for us, we should be able to cross-reference this list with anyone who had any legal squabbles in the past two years.”

  Chris scratched the back of his head. “Not sure how we’d go ’bout doin’ that, to be honest. We could get background information on every one of ’em, but you’re talkin’ ’bout doin’ fifty-seven background checks. Mobile will want to kill me if I call ’em up and ask for that.”

  “At least it’s you and not me. Do it. It’s quite possibly our best lead right now. While you’re at it, add the mayor to your list.”

  “Mayor Robertson? You seriously want me to ask for background checks on fifty-seven—wait, scratch that—fifty-eight different people?”

  “Yes.”

  “They’ll bring back lynchin’.”

  “You’re bein’ overly dramatic.”

  “I’m being realistic.”

  “Just run the checks.”