Dion glanced quickly back at Kevin’s disappearing taillights, but it was too late to flag him down. He turned back around. It was nothing, he told himself. She had just invited a new friend over for some innocent talk, that was all.
But if that was all, why were all the lights off?
He stepped quietly over the gravel of the front walk, tiptoeing, until he reached the front door. It was locked, but he had a key. He pulled out his wallet, removed the key from its hiding place behind the bills, and opened the door.
He could hear his mom in the bedroom.
She was not alone.
He stood there, unmoving. That was it, then. She was starting again. All that cock and bull she’d given him about turning over a new leaf had been just so much hot air. She hadn’t meant a single goddamn word of it.
So where did that leave them now?
How long was it going to be before she screwed things up here and got fired from this job?
He crept carefully across the wooden floor to his bedroom, moving silently, a trick he had perfected long ago. He could smell the pungent odor of whiskey in the still hall air. He wished he was one of those people who just didn’t care, who could roll with the flow and accept things the way they were. But he was not one of those people; he could not do that.
He closed the door to his room, took off his clothes, and got into bed.
The loud drunken conversation which had greeted him when he’d first come into the house had now degenerated into something else. He could hear the loud squeak of bedsprings through the thin wall, accompanied by short, high, breathless cries. His mother would start her litany soon:
“Oh, God, you’re good!… You’re so good! … Yes! … Yes! … Oh, God!
… You’re so big!… Oh, God, you’re big! … Oh, God!” He knew it by heart. It never changed. She never used names, and he’d wondered more than once if that was because she did not know the names of the men she brought home.
He pulled the blanket over his head and plugged his ears, trying to block out the sound, but her cries were getting louder. Did she enjoy this? he wondered. Did she mean any of the crudely flattering things she said, or was it all simply an act? He had never been sure.
He closed his eyes, trying to focus his attention on the earlier events of the night rather than on the show in the next room, but it was impossible to do so.
He hated his mom right now.
It was said that teenagers rebelled against their parents, consciously rejecting their parents’ value systems in an effort to forge their own identities. That sounded good in psych class, but he certainly didn’t feel as though he was rebelling against anything. He had no doubt, however, that his social awkwardness stemmed from, or was a reaction to, his mother’s “overly permissive” lifestyle.
Maybe that was why he’d never had sex.
It was not something which he would ever admit to in public, not something he would share with Kevin, but it was true. He rationalized it to himself, told himself it was better to wait until he had found the right person, but that was just an excuse and he knew it. It sounded good to have such high moral principles, and it did make him feel a little better about himself, as though he was making a conscious decision to do the right thing, but the truth was that he was just like anyone else. He would have jumped at the chance for sex if it had been offered.
Only it had never been offered.
Then again, maybe he wouldn’t have jumped at the chance. People always seemed to assume that the children of so-called “liberated” parents had an easier time of it, were more comfortable with their own sexuality, but he knew from experience that this was not the case. If anything, knowing about his mother’s love life in such detail tainted the sex act for him, made it seem distasteful and repulsive instead of exciting and desirable. He was also privy to his mother’s morning-after comments and could contrast what she moaned in bed and what she said afterward.
And that scared the hell out of him.
“You’re so good!” she cried from the other room. “You’re so big!”
He plugged his ears more tightly.
He fell asleep still plugging his ears.
Dion awoke in the middle of the night to go to the bathroom and stumbled out of bed into the hall.
Where he ran into his mom’s “guest.”
He jumped back, startled. “Sorry,” the man said sleepily, grabbing Dion’s shoulders. “Didn’t see you.” He was good-looking—weren’t they all?—and was tall and muscular, with thick black curly hair and a mustache. He was completely naked.
Dion watched him pad into his mother’s bedroom and close the door.
In the morning he was gone, and when Dion woke up and went into the kitchen for breakfast, his mom was already there, reading her paper and drinking coffee. She looked up when he entered, pretending as though nothing was wrong, as though nothing had happened. “What time did you get home last night?” she asked brightly.
“About eleven,” he said. He walked over to the counter, took two pieces of bread from the unwrapped loaf, and dropped them into the toaster, pressing the handle down.
“Did you have fun?” she asked. Did you? he wanted to say, but he simply nodded. He took the butter out of the refrigerator. “I had a hard time sleeping, though,” he said pointedly. His mom seemed not to notice the inference behind the words, and he poured himself a glass of orange juice.
She was being nice to him today, all traces of last week’s hostility gone, but somehow that made him feel even worse. He thought of what a friend of his back in Mesa always used to say about the girls who treated him like dirt, that all they needed was “a good fucking.”
His toast popped up, and he buttered it and sat down across from his mom at the table. She smiled at him. “What do you want to do today?”
“I don’t know,” he mumbled.
She folded the entertainment section of the paper and picked up the front page. “We’ll find something.”
He nodded, chewing slowly. He watched her as she read. His gaze focused on a small red stain on the right sleeve of her nightgown.
It looked like blood.
Lieutenant Horton looked down at the remains of Ron Fowler.
Remains.
It was an appropriate word. For the tangled mess of red muscle and bone which lay on the stone floor before him was barely recognizable as human. It looked like leftover food, something which had been chewed and rejected by the mouth of some gigantic creature.
He looked away, unable to stomach the sight except in short bursts. A
flash went off as the photographer snapped another picture. Horton stepped back, grateful for the battery of fans that were keeping the stench somewhat at bay. He turned toward the coroner. “How long would you estimate he’s been dead?”
“Hard to determine without tests, but I’d guestimate two days. Three tops.”
Jack Hammond, the detective assigned to assist Horton with the investigation, continued to quiz Jauvert Pauling, the winery owner. “How can you not have discovered this for two or three days?”
“What do you mean ‘how?’ We just didn’t.”
“Fowler’s car was still in the parking lot.”
“What do you want me to say?” The small man’s face was getting red.
“This is a busy time of year for us. Ron wasn’t there when we arrived in the morning, so we assumed he left. When he didn’t show up that night, we found our daytime security assistant to take the watch, and when we discovered that he was missing, we called you.”
“And no one noticed the body? Not even with all of your cameras and monitors?”
“The monitor to the cave was out; we were in the process of getting someone out here to repair it. And at this time of the season we don’t check the cave but once a week. The wine ferments without us.”
Horton tuned out the Q & A, looked again at the remains, turned away. He closed his eyes for a second, attempting to push back with willpower the major mother o
f a headache that was brewing behind his brows and that he knew could only be quelled by a double dose of industrial-strength aspirin.
He was getting too old for this shit.
Footsteps sounded on the concrete floor, and he looked up to see Chief Goodridge, Captain Furnier, and a group of flunkies striding across the concrete floor of the distilling room. The captain nodded at him, as did the chief.
“Capsule review,” the captain said, taking the clipboard from his hand.
Horton gave him a shorthand version of the events as currently understood. Both Goodridge and Furnier listened without asking questions, their hardened eyes taking in the bloody scene.
It was the chief who spoke first. “Any theories?”
Horton shrugged. “From the nature of the crime, we’re operating on the assumption that it was a cult of some sort, involved in animal and human sacrifice, although as you can see the scene seems more chaotic and unstructured than a ritual would indicate. I’ll be checking the computer for the names and practices of our local wier dies when I get back to the station. Hammond’ll be interviewing winery workers.”
The chief nodded. “I want you to keep this as quiet as possible,” he said. “If the media gets a hold of this, they’ll blow it all out of proportion—”
“Blow what out of proportion?” Pauling asked, walking over. “What will they blow out of proportion? The fact that satanists snuck into my winery and drank my wine and sacrificed animals in my fermenting room?
Or the fact that they killed and tore apart my security guard?”
“It’s a story that could easily be sensationalized—” the chief began.
“Because it’s a sensational story! Jesus, what do you want to do? Hush all this up, pretend it didn’t happen? It did happen!
It happened at my winery! My goddamn shoes are stuck to the goddamn floor with goddamn blood!” He pointed a finger in the chief’s face. “I
don’t give a fuck whether the media knows about this or not. I just want you to catch the bastards.”
“You don’t care?” the chief said. “What do you think it’s going to do to sales of your wine when consumers find out that satanic rituals were performed on your premises?”
“Gentlemen,” Horton said, sensing the tension building and stepping between the two men. ‘There’s no reason for us to argue. We’re on the same side. We both want to catch whoever did this, and I think we’ll have a better chance of that if we cooperate.”
The chief looked at him coldly. “I don’t need your advice, Lieutenant. I
know how to conduct myself in an investigation,” Horton backed off, nodding in acquiescence, swallowing the retort which rose naturally in his throat and which concerned the species of the chief’s mother. He was blinded for a second as he accidentally looked into the flash of the photographer, and he quickly glanced down. When the glare cleared, he saw again the security guard’s gruesome remains, a shred of tattered shirt glued with blood to bone, fluttering in the fan wind. He turned away.
He was getting too old for this shit.
“Ariadne,” Mr. Holbrook said professorially, pacing in front of the class, “was the princess of Thebes and—”
“Crete,” Dion said.
The teacher stopped talking, stopped walking, looked at him. The eyes of the other students followed those of their instructor. “What?” Mr.
Holbrook asked.
“Crete,” Dion repeated timidly. “Ariadne was the princess of Crete. You said Thebes.” He looked down at his desk, at his hands, embarrassed that he had spoken up, not sure why he had mentioned the misstatement, not sure how he had known that it was incorrect.
The teacher nodded. “You’re quite right, Dion. Thank you.”
The lecture continued.
Twenty minutes later the bell rang, and though the teacher was writing on the board, still speaking, in the middle of a sentence, books were immediately slammed shut, pencils pocketed, as students stood and rushed toward the door. Mr. Holbrook turned around, wiping the chalk dust from his fingers. “Dion,” he said. “I’d like to speak to you a moment.”
There was a chorus of onimous “oohs” from the departing students. “I’ll wait outside,” Kevin said, passing by. Dion caught Penelope’s eye and was gratified to see that she was looking at him.
The teacher walked to his desk as the class emptied and sat down in the swivel chair behind it. He leaned back in the chair and looked up at Dion, fingers steepled together. “It’s obvious,” he said, “that you have an extensive knowledge of classical mythology.”
Dion shifted uneasily from one foot to another. “Not really,” he said.
“Yes, you do. And I just wanted you to know that I can arrange for you to take independent study. Clearly you’re just spinning your wheels in this class. This is basically a mythology primer, an overview for beginners. I think you would benefit greatly from accelerated coursework.”
“No,” Dion said quickly.
“Don’t be so hasty. Think about it. I don’t know what your future academic plans are, but I can assure you that such a move would look very impressive on your transcripts.”
Outside the classroom, the hall was filled with talking, shouting, slamming lockers: the sounds of lunch. Dion glanced anxiously toward the open door, then turned his attention back to the teacher. “Okay,” he said. “I’ll think about it.”
“Discuss it with your parents. I really feel that you’d just be wasting your time in this course.”
“I will,” Dion said, backing up. He picked up his book and notebook from the top of his desk.
Mr. Holbrook smiled. “I know. It’s lunch. Go. Get out of here. But promise me you’ll consider this option, okay? We’ll talk more about it later.”
“Okay,” Dion said. “Uh, thanks. Bye.” He walked out of the room. In the hall, Kevin, Penelope, and her friend Vella were standing togedier next to one of the lockers. Dion knew that he was the subject of their conversation, and for some reason the knowledge made him absurdly, unreasonably happy. He walked purposefully toward them, but Penelope, seeing him, waved a quick goodbye to Kevin, and she and her friend disappeared into the stream of people rushing through the building toward the outside lunch area. “What was that about?” he asked Kevin.
“Why? Jealous?”
He hadn’t even thought of that.
“Don’t worry.” Kevin laughed. “She’s all yours. I was just talking to her. I don’t want to cornhusk her.”
Dion grinned. “Oh, you want her friend, huh?”
“For what? I already have a dog.” Kevin snorted.
“Come on. We’re late and it’s getting crowded. Let’s grab some grub.”
The two of them pushed their way through the crowd toward the cafeteria.
Dion was standing in line next to Kevin, trying to overhear the sexually explicit conversation of the two jocks in the next line over, when he felt a light feminine tap on his shoulder. A shiver of goosebumps surfed down his arm. He turned around. As he’d hoped, as he’d feared, he found himself face to face with Penelope. This close, he could see the clear smoothness of her skin, the natural redness of her lips. She nodded at him, smiled, but there was a trace of worry in her brow, a subtle hint of concern in her eyes. “What happened with Mr. Holbrook?” she asked.
“Are you in trouble?”
Dion studied her face. Did she care? Was she interested? His palms were sweaty and he wiped them on his jeans, but his voice betrayed none of his anxious excitement. “He said I should be in an advanced mythology class, but since there was none, he wanted me to take independent study.”
The worry turned to alarm. “Are you going to?”
She was interested.
“No.” He smiled.
A flush of redness spread over her cheeks. “It’s just that … I mean, I, uh—”
Kevin stuck his head between them. “She likes you, okay? God, just come out and say it. I’m tired of this. I have to listen to you two beat around the bush
for an hour and a half, and then I’ll have to listen to him analyze it for the next week. She likes you. You like her. You both like each other. Does that about cover it?”
Now both of them were red, embarrassed. They stood awkwardly silent, not looking at each other, neither of them knowing what to say.
“Would you like to sit with us?” Kevin asked, usurping Dion’s obvious next line. “Yes, thank you,” he answered himself.
Penelope looked doubtfully at Dion, then shifted her gaze toward one of the tables. “I’m supposed to eat with—”
“Bring her along,” Kevin said. He motioned for the two of them to move forward in line. “And move up. You’re blocking traffic. Jeez, do I have to do everything for you?”
Dion and Penelope looked at Kevin, then at each other, and laughed.
After paying for her lunch, Penelope went to get Vella, who was brown-bagging it, and the girls joined Dion and Kevin at a table near Senior Corner. It was Kevin who initiated the conversation at first, who expertly drew all of them into the discussion, but what began as a four-way dialogue was soon dominated by Dion and Penelope, who addressed most of their words to each other, involving Kevin and Vella only peripherally.
Dion drank his Coke quickly but hardly touched his hamburger as he kept his eyes and attention fastened on Penelope. He had expected the conversation to be stilted and awkward, filled with favorite food-favorite music favorite movie questions, and there was some of that, but for the most part the conversation flowed naturally, organically, not seeming the least bit forced or false. The two of them did not run out of things to talk about, as he’d feared, but found that each question, each answer, each observation, each reminiscence, opened up entirely new topics and fields for discussion. Neither of them mentioned what Kevin had brought up in line, and for that reason there was an underlying tension in their talk, a tension that maintained a steady rush of intoxicating adrenaline coursing through Dion’s veins.
Lunch ended far too soon.
The bell rang, and Kevin stood up, throwing his wrappers in the metal trash bin next to the table, waving goodbye, and heading off to his sixth-period class. Vella threw away her trash too and waited a respectable distance away for her friend. Around them the flow of people began streaming toward the classrooms.
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