S. A. Gorden

by The Duce of Pentacles

  Jim got out of his sweat-soaked bed. The muted sunlight penetrated the bedroom’s gloom, illuminating the brick lined walls. In a pain-filled rage, James threw himself against the brick walls, as if he were a caged animal.

  Bruised and exhausted he showered. He would not let himself be caged.

  First he had to protect Lori and then attack. He remembered reading a story about some military leader. The phrase the book used repeated itself though his mind. “The best defense is a good offense.” He was not going to be on the defense anymore!

  Al Gallea saw Makinen’s car pull up in the school’s parking lot. Al’s adrenaline surged. Henry was wrong! Makinen was the killer! Why else would he be here?

  The car pulled next to one of the three vehicles left in the school parking lot. Al checked his list to find the car belonged to Lori Waithe. As Al waited, his hands began to sweat. He kept rubbing them on his pant legs, unaware that a large stain was forming. Al saw two people leave the building.

  One had to be Lori and the other was another teacher, Mike Garrison. He watched Makinen get out of his car. Al couldn’t hear the discussion between the group but Mike soon left. He saw the discussion between Lori and Makinen become more animated.

  Al slowly got out of his car. He felt the chill on his pant leg where the sweat from his hands evaporated in the cool evening air. Al walked through the grass at the edge of the parking lot. He wanted to get as close as he could before the two arguing noticed him.

  Suddenly, Lori fell into Makinen’s arms. Damn … Damn … Damn! A lover’s quarrel. Al backed up to one of the trees lining the parking lot. He looked back across to the school and wondered if he had missed seeing anyone leave. When he turned back, Makinen and Lori had gone back into their cars and were leaving the lot. A small movement on the far side of the lot caught his attention. Al was about to investigate, when the owner of the last car left the building.

  In the bushes, the old man started repeating a new mantra, cop, Makinen, Lori, Kawalski. Cop, Makinen, Lori, Kawalski. Cop, Makinen, Lori, Kawalski! The cop was armed. The old man would need something special for him.

  Makinen and Lori would be easy, but Kawalski was huge. The old man would need something special for him as well.

  Why did Kawalski and the cop have to interfere with his pleasure? The old man left for home. He removed from the refrigerator the bundle he had from Pike. He left the penis and testicles in the wrapping. He had removed Pike’s heart as an afterthought. He had killed Pike by inserting old chopsticks into his body. He had cut a slit in Pike’s chest and inserted a chopstick into his lung. He had watched, for ten minutes, the end of the stick jiggle with each breath he took. Before Pike stopped moving, there were a dozen sticks inserted throughout his body.

  The old man took the scumbag’s heart and sliced it into a fry pan. He cooked it with onions until it looked like normal leftovers. Putting it in a dish, he brought it out to his backyard for the neighborhood dogs and cats. He sat in a rocking chair by his back window, watching the dish. In his mind, he planned on how to get rid of the two interferers quickly so he could take his time with Lori. He would save pieces of her to show Makinen when he came next.

  A cat was chased away from the dish by a stray collie. A smile came to his face when he saw a shepherd started a fight with the collie. He rocked the evening hours away to the sounds of fighting animals.

  Lori felt the comfort of sleeping in her old room. She had sensed the terror emanating from Jim when he asked her to leave her apartment. She had been surprised when he had suggested she stay at her father’s. At first, she had tried to argue with him. The haunted look on his face stopped her. She knew he was in danger as well. If he was too worried about her safety, his danger would increase.

  They had pulled into her father’s driveway together. She usually stopped by her old home at least a half a dozen times per week. She knew her father was lonely since her mother died a year ago. They never talked much about her mother. They just took comfort in being together.

  Lori saw the roguish grin on her father’s face when he opened the door.

  She felt her face flush when she realized he was looking over her shoulder at Jim. Her father’s grin increased as she struggled though introductions.

  Somehow the presence of the two men in her life overwhelmed her. She excused herself to go to the kitchen to make coffee.

  When she got back, Jim was gone and there was a worried look on her father’s face. The rest of the evening went poorly. Neither wanted to talk about what was happening. Her old room felt safe but the blackness on the other side of the window seemed to press in.

  Henry couldn’t shake the feeling that someone else was going to die soon. He tried to push his thoughts aside. He knew that he was responding the exact way the killer wanted him to. The killer wanted the power and control his actions caused to dominate the world around him. Henry coldly analyzed the facts of the investigation, reducing his emotions to a clinical study.

  Al slept like a baby, content in his own world, unaware that he was marked.

  Kawalski turned and twisted in bed, anger burning. The fear of being set up going through his mind.

  James drove up and down Lori’s street again. Seeing nothing, he parked his car and got out. Fading into the darkness of the nighttime neighborhood, he continued his hunt.

  Click. Hands turn the card in deliberate firmness. The light from the lamp lasts only long enough for the observer to catch a glimpse of a woman sitting in bed, head bowed, face covered by her hands with nine swords suspended in the air above the bed.

  ––—

  CHAPTER 12: Nine of Swords

  Shermon couldn’t understand how, in just a couple of weeks, he had gone from having possibly the best day in his life to the worst. Jack Andrews, the school district’s attorney, had called him at eight that morning and informed him that he was no longer authorized to sign any checks or transfer any of the school district moneys. When he asked how was he supposed to handle the school district’s business, he was told that he, Andrews, and one school board member could sign off on any disbursement. It was an hour later that his bank called to tell him that the sheriff’s department had subpoenaed his bank records. The remaining hours of the morning had been spent arguing with Kawalski on how to save themselves. He knew that Kawalski would try to cut a deal with the county prosecutor’s office. He was trying to decide if he should run or try to cut his own deal, when a knock was heard from his door.

  What more could go wrong? The door opened and the janitor pushed his cart into the office.

  William Jones was sixteen when he became infatuated with Julie Jenson.

  She was a fifteen-year-old that had moved into the house at the end of the block that summer. William never knew anything about seduction. He did know that Julie seemed lost about moving into a strange town. William knew he had to make his move before school started. William was a scrawny kid with poor coordination. He never played any sports in school. He only had two friends that were even lower in the school’s pecking order than he was. Julie was not very pretty but she had already developed large breasts. Once school started, William was sure she would start going with members of the football team and leave him.

  It was late in August when William convinced her to go out to an abandoned shack just outside of town. He had been stealing a beer at a time from his father for the whole summer. His hoard now numbered twenty bottles of beer and a bottle of whiskey he got from pouring the half-empty glasses his father had drank before falling asleep at night back into the bottle.

  At first, Julie wasn’t very friendly but after a few beers she let him grope her breasts. As Julie slowly became drunk, he removed her clothes. He was already fucking her as she lost consciousness. For the rest of the hot late-summer day and into the night, William sat naked drinking beer and whiskey. Whenever he finished a beer, he mounted the unconscious girl. He finally stopped after she threw up on him while he was fucking her.

  It was so
mething William never understood. After that hot August day, Julie never let him see her alone. William had thought that after that day, they would be boyfriend and girlfriend. He had fantasized about how high he would rise in the school’s pecking order when he put his arms around the large-breasted Julie in the halls between classes.

  It was the first week in October when William knew something was wrong.

  He had just gotten home from school. His father was sitting in his ratty old sofa chair with a half empty bottle of Yukon Jack on the coffee table in front of him.

  “Boy! Get right here!” his father snarled, pointing to the front of the chair.

  William stood where his father pointed. The next thing William remembered was lying against the living room wall, blood dripping from cuts along the left side of his face with a ringing in his ears. His father had grabbed the collar of his shirt, causing him to gag and choke whenever he shook him. The fetid alcohol-soaked breath of his father penetrated his senses as his father screamed at him.

  From a vast distance, the words his father screamed slowly found focus in William’s mind. “Knocked … Knocked up … girl … stealing booze …

  stealing my booze … if you can’t keep your pecker to yourself…” Finally, unconsciousness brought oblivion to William.

  William never saw Julie again. Her family left town before she could start showing her pregnancy. That same month, the cast was taken off the broken arm his father had given him and his grandmother forced him to marry his third cousin. He had just turned seventeen. His cousin was nineteen years old and already divorced. Her ex-husband was serving fifteen to twenty years in Illinois for armed robbery.

  It was two years later when his father showed up at his apartment with papers to sign that he finally found out what happened to Julie. The papers were for adoption of his son by her new husband. With his father and his wife looking on, he only remembered two things from the papers, the name of the town Julie now lived in, Sioux Bluff, South Dakota and the name of her new husband.

  It was two decades later after his father died in a drunken brawl, that William started to look for his son. He did it carefully and slowly, afraid his wife would find out what he was doing. Over the years, his wife had grown meaner. She had resented the fact that the family had decided that she had to marry William to control him. As a reward, she became the matriarch of the Jones family after William’s grandmother died. But the reward didn’t last.

  When William’s grandmother died, the family started to move away, those that weren’t in jail. William’s wife didn’t have the strength of Mother Jones to control a whole family. She did, however, have the strength to control him.

  James saw the small news truck pull in. He had carefully watched over Lori through the night and followed her to the school. He had just stopped by his trailer for some food and a nap before he planned on starting his own pushing. The reporter was one of those perpetually bubbly young reporters that the small local TV stations hire straight from college. She had the standard short hair of most live TV news reporters, a small turned up nose and eyes that were open wider than average. The only thing that made her more human that a mechanical wind-up doll was a slight lisp to her voice. Through the edge in his curtains, James watched the reporter with her cameraman set up just in front of his steps.

  James heard the introduction she taped through the thin trailer walls.

  “This is Debbi Nord-Schuler reporting for Action News 7 & 11. I am in front of the home of James Makinen, a former teacher in the Deer Lake Falls school district. Sources close to the investigation have told Action News that Mr.

  Makinen was being investigated by the county sheriff’s department on assault allegations placed by the first victim, Jennifer Rossetti, at the time of her death. Sources have also told us that he has been linked to other assaults involving students in the district. We have been able to confirm that several incidents have occurred in the last few days involving Mr. Makinen. The sheriff’s department has been unwilling to make any other statements concerning Mr. Makinen, stating that they do not comment on ongoing investigations.

  “We have tried repeatedly to contact Mr. Makinen by phone, but he has not answered our calls. We do know that he has hired his own lawyer, who has also refused to make any statements.”

  She put down her mike. “Okay, Carl. Let’s wrap it up here. I want you to pan across the trailer and focus in on the padlocked shed in back and the piles of brush. We’ll set up for our next segment in front of Bodonavich, Finch, and Heiminen.”

  After panning across the trailer, Carl asked, “Aren’t you going to see if he’s home?”

  “Why? Unless we get some comments from the cops, it will play better not to give the man a face. It scares the public more and there is less chance of getting into any liability trouble.”

  “Okay. Let’s go.”

  James changed his plans. As the reporter taped her piece in front of his law firm, he walked up to their truck. He poured some used oil behind the back bumper. He had watched the cameraman open the back hatch to place the camera in the truck after filming at his place.

  Acting like any spectator watching a news filming, James waited for them to come back from the steps of the law firm. The cameraman went down to his knees when he stepped into the oil. James rushed up to help and to the astonishment of the watching reporter got the cameraman to his feet. Somehow in the resulting tangle, the camera was dropped into the old motor oil with the tape cassette lying next to it.

  She yelled, “Carl, you idiot! Look what happened to the tape!” They both rushed over to the cassette. By the time the TV crew turned their attention away from the oil-sodden cassette, the man who had helped Carl had disappeared. All either of them could remember afterwards was the man looked average.

  James wasn’t much of a detective. He knew that if he waited, Lori might get hurt, so he attacked the only way he thought he could. He drove to the school.

  He first went to the superintendent’s office. Walking past the old man sweeping the floor and the secretary, Thelma, he opened Shermon’s door. Inside he saw Shermon, his face pale with a lost look. As James watched him, he saw his face turn to red anger.

  Before Shermon could say a word, James asked, “Do you know who killed Jenny and Pike … Did you?” James watched the emotions play across Shermon’s face as he tried to sputter out an answer.

  Shermon finally sputtered out a weak, “Get out!”

  James closed the door. He knew he had somehow gotten part of an answer, but what, he didn’t know. He turned and saw the amazement on Thelma’s face.

  The janitor never even looked up as he left for the principal’s office.

  Amy and a teacher with two students were waiting when James got to the office. He walked past them and opened Kawalski’s door. “Do you know who killed Jenny and Pike?”

  Before James could finish his questions, Kawalski gave a loud bellow and charged through the doorway at him. James slipped the out-of-control rush.

  Missing James, Kawalski tumbled into Amy’s desk, spilling the computer and files on it to the floor. With an angry grunt, Kawalski got to his feet and rushed at Jim again, his hands outstretched, clutching for Jim’s throat.

  A coolness James had never known he had washed across him. In the back of his mind without conscious thought, he analyzed Kawalski’s attack. He was coming in high, so Jim slid his left leg forward, his right hand cocked and ready at his right hip. As Kawalski’s arms went over his head, James rotated his body forward and released his right fist. The fist rotated perfectly into a focused blow in the advancing Kawalski’s solar plexus. Kawalski tumbled weakly to the floor, gasping.

  James looked at the stunned Amy, teacher, and kids. Turning to Kawalski, he said, “You really are a slow learner. By now you should have known better than to attack me.”

  In a sharp voice James said, “Joe!” The still gasping Kawalski focused his eyes on Makinen. “The killing has to stop!”

  James lo
cked his eyes on Kawalski. Slowly he said, “Do … you …

  understand?” He waited until Kawalski finally nodded his head.

  Al Gallea saw Makinen drive up to the school. Only minutes later, he saw him walk out and drive away. Curious, he entered the building himself.

  Hearing a commotion coming from the principal’s office, he entered. Kawalski was leaning against a desk, holding his stomach.

  When he saw Gallea, he said, “You’ve got to arrest that crazy Makinen.

  He attacked me.”

  Looking at the others in the room, Al saw a teacher shake his head

  ‘no.’ “What happened?”

  “Kawalski attacked Makinen.” The others nodded their heads ‘yes.’

  Kawalski hissed, “You Son-of-a-Bitch, I’ll — “

  “You’ll what?” interrupted Gallea. Al had never intimidated anyone before but Kawalski was completely whipped. He mumbled something and left for his office. Al talked to the ones remaining.

  Al immediately left the school. Going to the nearest minit mart, he called the sheriff’s station, asking for Henry. He did not want anyone with a scanner to hear what he was going to say. When Henry got on the line, Al blurted out, “You were right. Makinen is one tough son of a bitch. He just walked into the school and asked Shermon and Kawalski who killed Jenny and Pike. I think those two know something. His questions really shook them up.