by J. B. Hawker
“Yes, well, thanks again... I was just going inside; would you care to come in for a warm drink before you leave?”
Walter hesitated a moment, and then surprised her by accepting.
“Oh well, that’s what I get for saying things just to make myself seem kind,” Bunny thought, ushering him into the house.
Walter sat at the table and looked around the kitchen, as though he found every detail fascinating.
Bunny dropped the bag on the table and began to make tea.
“How are the new pastor and his family settling in?” she asked.
“I should have stopped in to see if they need anything, really, but I’ve recently started a new job and don’t seem to have as much time as I used to.”
“I never thought about that you would have to get a job,” Walter mumbled. He sounded almost apologetic.
“Oh, well, lots of people have to work for a living. It’s not the end of the world. Here’s your tea...sugar or milk?”
She wished he would leave, so she could fix her dinner.
She didn’t seem to have much Christian hospitality this evening, but she wasn’t used to working eight-hour days and she was very tired.
Bunny tried to make small talk while they drank their tea, but it was rough going.
Walter was not much help with his one-syllable responses.
He seemed preoccupied with something and was even more uncommunicative than usual.
When he drained his cup and stood to go, Bunny almost celebrated aloud.
She saw him to the door, thanking him again for bringing her late husband’s things, then she shut and locked the door and stood there leaning on it.
“I don’t suppose I need to strike quite such a melodramatic pose as this, but my word, that man is boring.”
As she re-entered her kitchen, the cats came out from their hiding places and began to try to entice her into feeding them.
As usual, she gave in and prepared their dinner before her own.
Later, lying in bed, she remembered how the leaves had clung to her shoes as she crossed her messy front yard and she told herself she had her work cut out for her on Saturday.
This fall certainly produced a bumper crop of leaves to rake. If Saturday was calm, she might have a bonfire.
With that comforting thought, she began to emit a soft and ladylike snore.
Chapter Ten
Teach us to use wisely all the time we have. – Psalm 90:12
“That photo of the hanging man was a lucky break,” Max Banks thought.
Not only had the police department used it in their investigation, but the AP service picked it up for their coverage.
So far, it was not a widely covered story It was just a small crime item, more a seasonal filler than a real feature story. Even finding the detached arm did not make much of an impression on the wires.
Locally, the murder and dismemberment had overshadowed the decorating contest, naturally enough.
Max still had to cover the Chamber event. A weekly paper’s focus was always on the local angle.
Although these crimes were certainly local, they seemed remote, somehow, more like national incidents. That would change once people learned the identities of the victims, especially if they were from this community.
Max had interviewed a few of the decorating contest entrants about their feelings, in light of recent happenings, and was pasting up the story to accompany that week’s featured homes.
He had reluctantly talked again with Dinks Dodd, because a photo of his house was going to be included in the article.
Amazingly enough, the decorating on the Dodd house was creative.
Dinks blurred the division between the historical cemetery and his adjacent front yard with the addition of statuary and a plastic garden shed tricked out to resemble a marble mausoleum.
Looming up behind the shed was a dark wraith reminiscent of the Ghost of Christmas Future from Dickens’s A Christmas Carol. Its long, bony finger pointed to a nearby tombstone.
The literary allusion surprised Banks, who always assumed Dinks never learned to read.
However, Dodd’s responses to Max’s questions were true to form for the life-long misfit.
When Banks asked if Dodd thought the contest should be canceled in light of the deaths, his reply had been a blunt, “Hell no. Those dead bodies just livened things up a bit.”
Dinks went on to say, “I’ve seen some tourist-types driving around gawking at the decorations to see if they can find more real corpses amongst the crepe paper and pumpkins. I think it’s great. A boon to the town. We should play it up. You know, give the killer a nickname like “Son of Sam”. Maybe something like, the Clark’s Hallow Hacker, maybe...yeah, that’s not bad. You can use it, Banks.”
That guy gave Banks the creeps. He always had.
Even as a kid, Dinks had been scary. He did not seem to know where the boundaries were.
Max certainly was not going to write about his horrible nickname idea.
“Bunny, let’s go to lunch!”
Max looked up from the layout he was working on and called out.
It was only a quarter to twelve, but an early lunch sounded great to Bunny.
She’d eaten only tea and toast for breakfast, because she had overslept a bit.
“That sounds like a good idea, but we usually stagger our lunch hours. Do you mean I can go first today?”
“I mean let’s lock up and go grab a bite together for a change. The murders have made things so hectic around here we’ve had no time to get reacquainted. Come on. Turn off your computer and let’s go!”
“Sure. You’re the boss, Max. Where did you have in mind?”
Bunny logged off and grabbed her coat and purse.
Max held the door for her and, after hanging the “We’ll Be Back” sign set for one-thirty, he locked up.
Pulling away from the curb, Max asked Bunny where she would like to eat.
She was in the mood for a quesadilla and a taco, so she suggested “Manuela’s” out on Valley Blvd. It was a favorite of hers, but she seldom splurged on restaurant meals.
“Or we could grab a burger at the fast food place,” she added quickly, when it occurred to her lunch might be Dutch treat.
“Manuela’s it is, then. I’ve always liked their food, and I feel like a cerveza, to wash it down.”
When the time came to order the drinks, Bunny opted for a glass of iced water with a wedge of lemon. She had never had a head for alcohol, not even beer.
“Still sticking to water, I see, Bunny,” Max teased, as he pushed a sliver of lime into the neck of his bottle of Corona.
“I seem to remember you having a predictable reaction to liquor…let’s see, it was one drink makes you funny and giggly, two drinks make you very romantic, shall we call it, and three drinks put you to sleep. Did I get that right?” he grinned.
“You’ve got a good memory for trivia,” Bunny laughed.
“Shall we put your reactions to the test? They might have changed after all this time, you know.”
“I’m sure the first drink would put me to sleep these days. We have an afternoon’s work to get back to, so I don’t think I’ll do any experimenting today. Thanks just the same.”
Their food arrived and they turned their attention to enjoying the rich blend of spicy flavors.
Bunny’s quesadilla was exactly as she liked it, with the cheeses all melted and chewy.
Max had a beef enchilada, smothered in red sauce and topped with sour cream, which looked and smelled delicious.
Bunny thought she would try one the next time she had Mexican food.
Back at the office typing up Max’s notes for a story on vandalism at the old cemetery, Bunny kept smiling as she remembered their lunch. It had been almost like a date.
It had been fun. Fun had not played a very large role in Bunny’s years with Eustace.
Whatever happened to Max since their divorce seemed to have change
d him for the better.
Bunny was having trouble remembering why she thought so harshly of him for so long.
That evening when Max offered her a ride home, as he usually did, Bunny accepted his offer.
It was silly to turn him down, especially when the evenings were getting dark so much earlier.
It was only a week until Halloween and the nights were becoming longer and chillier with each passing day. A warm, safe ride home was just good sense.
It was dark and chilly outside the God’s Truth Baptist Church.
It was uncomfortable for the man huddling in the shadows.
An elders’ meeting was just breaking up and men were beginning to straggle out, one or two at a time.
The watcher stood quietly, never letting his gaze drop from the entryway.
The door opened, painting a pool of light on the sidewalk and nearby bushes.
The observer shrank more deeply into the shadows.
A middle-aged man filled the doorway, briefly blocking the light, and then extinguishing it altogether as he turned and flipped the light switch.
He pulled the door shut and locked it, then strode off toward the dark parking lot.
His audience of one followed silently.
As the deacon reached the lone car in the lot, the sound of footsteps caused him to turn.
“Oh. Hi there. I didn’t see you around earlier. Would you like a lift?”
Both men entered the car and rode away.
Dinks Dodd hunched over an obviously second-or-third-hand desk, tapping on the keyboard of a powerful Dell computer connected to a high-speed Internet connection.
He peered intently at the flat-screen monitor before him and murmured to himself.
“The body slipped silently into the swift, oily waters of the river, whirled around and disappeared from view…from view...”
“Oh, shoot! I had it there for a minute and then I lost it. Oh well, time to take a break.”
He rose and stretched with a groan, then stood looking through the narrow and smudged attic window onto the old cemetery.
“This house is the perfect spot for me to work. I knew it when I first laid eyes on it,” he said.
The room was mostly bare, only the work area looked lived-in.
There was a path in the dust on the floor between the doorway and the desk, with a few scuff marks near the windows. A battered file cabinet, piled with newspapers bearing grisly headlines of murder and mayhem, stood beside the desk. A cheap brass desk lamp with a green glass shade illuminated the area around the desk.
The rest of the room was in shadow, creating a sinister ambiance.
Dinks left the attic and clomped down the narrow stairs, groping in the darkness until his hand found the wall switch in the rundown kitchen just off the hallway at the foot of the staircase.
Rust streaked the chipped enamel of the single sink beneath a dripping faucet. A sixties-era olive drab refrigerator and matching range took up most of the space in the narrow room.
Dinks opened the fridge and grabbed a can of Coors, popped it open and drank with evident pleasure.
Setting the half-empty can on the counter, he began to rummage in a cabinet beside the sink, eventually pulling out a bag of chips. Holding the chips in one hand and the beer in the other, he switched off the light with his elbow and remounted the stairs.
The light from a passing car revealed only bare floors and empty rooms.
Chapter 11
Suppose you hit someone with a piece of iron or a large stone or a dangerous wooden tool. If that person dies, then you are a murderer and must be put to death...–Numbers 35: 15-1
Martha Homsher stepped out onto her front porch and looked around. She was almost sure she had heard something. Perhaps it was Mr. Bootsy come home, at last.
It was almost a week since her precious kitty had failed to return home from a night on the town.
He was a bit of a carouser, so she had not been worried, at first.
She was certain he had found some special lady-cat who was turning his head for the moment, and he would soon return to Martha’s lap and her loving arms.
Every time she heard a sound from outside, the tiny, frail eighty-year-old would scurry to the door or the window to welcome home her furry companion.
Looking around her porch, she noticed there was something amiss about the array of jack-o-lanterns her grandson had lined up near the railing.
The largest appeared to have toppled over.
As she attempted to right it, she was amazed at how heavy it was, even hollowed out. She had a great deal of difficulty repositioning it. There seemed to be something inside.
Martha stepped into the house, turned on the porch light, and returned to get a better look at the carved pumpkin.
With a small gasp, she jerked back, her foot slipped in something slick on the porch floor, she tumbled into the railing, and came to rest beside the oversized jack-o-lantern with its double grimace.
The ambulance had driven off, carrying Mrs. Homsher, and the police were taping off the area around her porch, when a black cat with white paws turned up; hungry, tired and extremely satisfied with himself. Mr. Bootsy was ready for his food and a nice long nap. Where was the woman to let him in?
Lieutenant Fuchs pulled a green plastic chair nearer to the side of the hospital bed and sat down.
He leaned forward and spoke gently.
“Mrs. Homsher, can you tell me about what happened this evening?”
Martha reached for her drinking water.
Fuchs helped lift it to her lips as she drank then returned the cup to the tray.
The bird-like elderly woman licked her lips and prepared to recall the most terrifying experience of her life.
“Well, you see, I thought I heard Mr. Bootsy jump onto the front porch. When he didn’t scratch on the screen door, I went out to look for him. Of course, it wasn’t him, at all, so Heaven alone knows what it was I heard. Maybe the wind pushed a branch of the bottlebrush tree against the porch roof, or something. It is hard to tell sometimes. My hearing isn’t what it used to be, you know.”
She settled back against her pillow, as though finished with her tale.
The policeman prompted her, “When you didn’t see your cat, what did you do, Mrs. Homsher?”
“Oh. Oh, yes, of course. That’s the part that interests you. I’m sorry for being so muddled. It’s all very confusing and my head hurts.”
“Of course. You had a bad shock. Just take your time. Would you like another drink?”
“No, no, thank you. I’m alright…Well, then, as I looked around the porch for Bootsy, I noticed my grandson’s jack-o-lanterns were moved about. He doesn’t have any place to display them in his mother’s apartment, so I told him he could have all the pumpkins he wanted on my front porch. I’m afraid he took me at my word. Where he got that assortment of huge pumpkins I’m sure I don’t know, but he and one of his pals had great fun carving them up. They did such a good job on them, and cleaned up after themselves very nicely. They are really very good boys. I keep the cookie jar full for them when they stop by after school. Chewy oatmeal and raisin cookies are my grandson’s favorite. Good for him, too. Sometimes I make a batch with chocolate covered raisins and sometimes with dried cranberries, just for variety. I tried chopped dates, once, but the boys didn’t care for them much.”
“But the pumpkins seemed to have been moved around, you say?”
Lieutenant Fuchs worked hard to contain his impatience with the old woman.
“Yes, that’s right. The biggest one was right out of line from the others. So, I tried to shove it back into place, but it was too heavy. I noticed there seemed to be something inside it. I didn’t want to put my hand inside when I couldn’t tell what was in there…it might have been a rat, or something disgusting…something...disgusting...”
She trailed off.
“Ooh, something very disgusting!�
�� she cried abruptly.
“And it was! Oh! The most disgusting thing I’ve ever seen. Oh, oh….”
Fuchs leaned forward and patted the old lady’s bony hand, urging her to calm down.
After some time, she regained her composure and resumed speaking.
“Well, at first, I couldn’t tell what was inside the pumpkin, you see, because it was too dark. So, I went back inside and turned on the porch light. I don’t like to leave it on very much because it attracts moths and other flying bugs, you know, and then they come inside when I open the door. I can’t stand bugs in my house. Can you? Well, I needed the light to see what was in the pumpkin, so I just had to turn it on. Then, when I went back to the pumpkin and took off the top….” she hesitated for a moment before swallowing hard, and taking a deep breath.
“There was something furry, hairy really, but I couldn’t tell what, so I poked it with a large twig I found lying on the porch. I sweep that porch every day, but you would never know it, anyway, I poked at it, and it sort of rolled over a bit and, well, it looked right at me. And that’s the last thing I remember until I was in the ambulance.”
She sank back onto her pillow, looking exhausted and pale from reliving her ordeal.
“I am so grateful to my neighbor, Verla Blyne. She just happened to be looking out her window when I fell and she called the ambulance. That woman spends most of her time keeping tabs on her neighbors, it seems to me, turns out this time it was a blessing.”
Lieutenant Fuchs thanked her, apologizing for putting her through it all again, and made his exit.
She wasn’t able to add much to what they already surmised.
Perhaps her nosy neighbor would be able to shed more light on things.
After interviewing Mrs. Blyne, who merely confirmed Mrs. Homsher’s account, Fuchs returned to the office.
Sergeant Michelson greeted him, holding up a notepad.