S. A. Gorden

by The Duce of Pentacles

  Kawalski even tried to attack Makinen. Makinen put him down without even trying!

  “School is letting out now. I think you should come here with Frank. I think that if we put a little pressure on them now, they will tell us something. We will need to keep them apart so they won’t know what the other is saying.”

  The busses and most of the faculty had left when Al got back to the school. There was already a deputy at the front of the building so he drove around in back. Al parked where he could see the other deputy’s car and waited for Henry and Frank. He saw a flash of movement at a back entrance. It would start and stop. Curious, he walked to the back door. It was a steel utility door with only a narrow window. Seeing nothing, Al opened the door. He stood just inside the doorway waiting for his eyes to adjust to the sudden darkness.

  A flash and a pull across his stomach. He was on the floor! How had he gotten there? He was having trouble seeing. Finally, out of the shadows, he made out the figure of an old man leaning on something. At first he thought it was a broom. He wondered why the broom handle had a curve in it? He forced his eyes to focus. It wasn’t a broom. It was a scythe, with a blade burnished white, except for a dark stain dripping from the shinny edge.

  Kawalski was tired, confused, and angry. The police showed up after school in force. The old deputy sheriff, Hakanen, questioned him. During the first few minutes, the questioning was simple stuff, but every time he opened his mouth, the old deputy would follow up with another question. He soon realized that he was telling the deputy everything. Kawalski had just decided to ask for his lawyer when another deputy hurried into his office. The next question surprised him. “Where is the other deputy?” After the blank look he gave the cops, they added, “The deputy that talked to you after Makinen left.”

  The looks the cops gave him crumbled all of his resolve. He was scared of them, jail and Makinen. He had always pushed others around. Now everything was different, no one was afraid of him, but what hurt him even worse was the obvious disdainful disgust they showed him. Before the penetrating eyes of the old deputy, Kawalski confessed everything. He begged him to believe him. He blamed everything on Shermon. The deputy gave him a sheet of paper and told him to write everything down and sign it. He had tried to stop writing halfway through the first paragraph. When he looked up, he saw the uniforms, the strong young men with their hands resting on their holstered guns. He had felt ashamed and caged. The only place he could look without seeing them was the paper in front of him.

  When he was done, he realized the school had become filled with cops.

  There were dogs being lead through the halls. There were others talking on their radios. Outside he saw the lights of camera crews. The old deputy took his confession from him. The look Hakanen gave him chilled his soul.

  “Go home. We have work to do here. We will talk more tomorrow. Don’t make it hard for me to find you. Understand?” Hakanen looked at Kawalski until he nodded.

  Kawalski pushed his way through the reporters outside and drove home.

  He had not realized how long he had talked to the cops until he got to the dark of the parking lot. The flashing lights from the dozens of police cars gave him light to put his keys in his car ignition. Out of the lot, the darkness closed in around him. He pulled into his driveway. He sat in the dark car, trying to think for minutes possibly hours.

  Kawalski opened his front door. Turning on his lights, he froze.

  Dangling from the stairway on the far side of his living room was a man’s body. He could see a huge wound across the man’s belly nearly severing him in half. He could hardly make out the man’s features. A rope had been wrapped across his face attaching him to the stair’s banister. He took a step closer trying to see the man’s face when a bright blur flashed in front of him.

  The old man got his moving truck from the back of his pickup. Laying the truck flat on the floor he was able to roll the body on and wheel him out to his pickup. The old man wheeled the truck up the homemade wooden loading ramp and into the pickup box. The killer laid an old tire on top of the plastic-wrapped body and went into the house for the other corpse. The killer cleaned the house. The old man dusted and vacuumed humming the tune from Snow White, Whistle While You Work. He removed the dust bag from the vacuum. The old man placed a table lamp to highlight the dark bloodstain on the carpet and left the house.

  Driving out to a bridge, the old man first scattered the dust from the vacuum bag and then threw in the scythe and empty bag. Eight miles out of town, one of the old man’s drinking buddies was logging pulp for a local paper mill. He remembered that his friend owned a skidder and at one time showed him how it worked, the powerful diesel engine bulling the large machine through the woods running over small trees. Sitting high above the brush, he could gently press the controls and the machine would move. He helped his friend wrap steel cables around a dozen trees. With a slight increase above the diesel’s idle speed, the wench on the skidder pulled the trees out of a marsh.

  The power of the machine now called to the old man.

  The old man drove to the logging site. He climbed the short ladder to the cab of the John Deere skidder. Hot-wiring it, he drove it up to his pickup. Releasing the inch-thick skidding cable, he wrapped it around the bodies. Revving the diesel engine a few times, he winched in the bodies. He left the bodies hang from the back of the skidder. Tons of force had pulled the cable through the bodies, leaving the severed pieces dangling from the few shreds of tissue and plastic remaining between the steel loops.

  The old man left for home. On the drive back he would occasionally caress the plastic wrapped bundles on the seat next to him. He had some more cooking to do for the neighborhood animals.

  The darkness surrounding the hands is nearly complete. From the deck another card from the suit of swords is turned over.

  A woman, blindfolded and tied, stands between five swords on her left and three on her right.

  The hands slowly reach for the light. The room plunges to black.

  ––—

  CHAPTER 13: The Eight of Swords

  Henry was worried about the disappearance of Al. He was furious about the mess that Frank made interrogating Shermon. He had known Frank for years and had refused to believe the rumors that his impending retirement from the BCA was being forced upon him because of his loss of skills due to age.

  Despite his worry over Al’s disappearance, he was able to glean all the information Kawalski had. Once he started talking, he laid out all of his and Shermon’s dealings, blackmail, embezzlement, extortion. He did have the presence of mind to blame everything on Shermon. Henry would have arrested him on the spot but for two things, his worry for Al and wanting to run the information about the case past the county prosecutor. He wanted Kawalski in jail. He knew from other cases he had against white-collar criminals, that small slipups during the arrest could lose a case in court.

  He couldn’t believe that Frank had lost the incentive with Shermon’s interrogation nearly immediately. On top of that, he had let Shermon walk away after only a few minutes. Frank had started the search for Al but now Frank had disappeared. No one Henry talked to seemed to know where Frank had gone.

  Henry was about to add Frank to the search when Nancy radioed him from the station. She told him that Frank had just informed her that he had arranged to get five more BCA agents and a few state troopers on the case and that they would be able to join the search by morning.

  The relief of finally finding out about Frank released a floodgate of questions and facts. Henry knew that something important was missing.

  Everything he’d learned tonight didn’t add up. What was happening? He was sure he knew something. He felt a tugging at the back of his mind. Something small was trying to catch his attention…

  Agent Vernon walked past the principal’s office door. When he saw Henry sleeping with his head propped up on the desk, he quietly shut the door and turned back to the turmoil of the temporary command post they had set
up in the outer office.

  James spent the night prowling the neighborhood around Lori’s father’s home. He was beginning to learn the area and the area learned him. The dogs had stopped barking every time they caught his scent on the breeze. A couple of animals even sought him out to be petted. After Lori left for school, James knocked on the neighborhood doors with her father. They explained that they were worried about Lori’s safety after the recent events. They asked them to keep an eye out for anyone not normally in the neighborhood and explained that James would be checking on things through the night.

  After they were done talking to the neighbors, they went inside to have some coffee. Curious on how easily Lori’s father accepted the situation, Jim asked, “Why do you accept what I told you? I show up on your doorstep with your daughter and tell you she’s in danger. You don’t know me. You must have heard the stories about what I’ve been accused of. I offer no proof that she’s in danger. Yet, you’ve not questioned me. Why?”

  “I know my daughter. You have to be someone special to her for her to bring you to my home. I trust her judgment.”

  Lori’s father’s face got a lost look with a faint smile hinting at the corner of his mouth. “Her mother was a very special person. Out of the blue, she would tell me to do something, not to take that road or to go and see a friend. Afterwards, I would hear that there had been an accident on that road or the friend had a death in the family. She never explained how she knew what had happened. Lori is a little like her. Maybe I’ve lived so long with her mother’s premonitions … I don’t know, but when you said you were afraid for Lori, I knew you were right.”

  The front door banged open. “Dad? Jim?” When she saw them she continued, “The school is closed. A cop disappeared last night at the school.

  They had dogs and search teams going through the school looking for him. When I got there this morning, they were questioning all the staff about last afternoon. It took a couple of hours before they were done questioning us.”

  She turned and looked sternly at Jim. “I found out what you did yesterday.”

  Her father saw the small change come over her face. He knew it was pride he saw. Ever since she was in the second grade, she would try to hide her pride in an accomplishment by putting on a face of concern or indifference. The first time he noticed it was when she brought home her second report card of the year. She walked up to him with such a solemn face and handed over her report card. He knew something different was coming from the hesitation in her voice as she whispered, “I’ll try to do better next time.” There was only one S+ on the card. The rest of the grades were E’s for excellent. When he looked up, her face burst into a smile and she dove into his lap.

  He turned from her and looked at Jim. He lost track of the conversation as he concentrated on their faces. He saw it now with full clarity, what he had suspected earlier. Her pride in Jim was because she knew Jim belonged to her. Jim had to force himself to look away from her. When Jim did turn away, his movements became awkward and hesitant. A sad happiness washed over Lori’s father. He had lost part of his daughter to this man. He wanted to be more upset but couldn’t. She was happy!

  He was still trying to sort out his feelings when there was a knock at the front door. He saw the sheriff’s car in the driveway through the living room windows before he got to the front door.

  “Hello. I’m Deputy Sheriff Hakanen. I’m looking for James Makinen. I wish to speak to him about an investigation.”

  Something happened to Jeffrey Waithe. Something he never expected or would’ve believed if he had been told. Like all parents, he had protected his daughter Lori from danger, from any bad experience. He didn’t quite understand how it happened as quickly as it did, but he now had to protect Jim. “Do you have a card? If I see him, I will tell him you are wanting to speak to him.”

  He started to close the door.

  “It’s all right, Mr. Waithe. What is it you want to talk to me about, Henry?”

  Sandra couldn’t believe what was happening. All the cases she had ever worked with had been straightforward and followed a predictable pattern. After all, she wasn’t a criminal lawyer. The average corporate or civil case she handled was usually won by proving the fine print on a contract or waiver.

  The first indication that something different was happening was the rabid TV reporter jumping her with a camera and microphone in the back parking lot of Bodonavich, Finch and Heiminen. At first, Sandra stood stunned by the sudden ambush. What finally broke her lethargy was when she realized that the reporter was using her non-answers as consent to her statements.

  “So your client, James Makinen, has been questioned by the police about the recent murders.”

  Afterwards, Sandra never understood how she had the presence of mind to stop the reporter. She knew she had lost the incentive with the woman. She had to gain it back or both she and her clients would look guilty. She knew that no matter what was said, most court cases were affected by the popular press.

  But she didn’t understand reporters! How could she get control back? She understood lawyers, not the press…

  She gazed directly at the reporter and calmly asked, “I would like the name of your station’s lawyer and his phone number, please?” She then retrieved her cell phone from her bag and waited for the number.

  The reporter hesitated, “I don’t know the name.”

  “Well, then give me your station manager’s number and we’ll go from there.”

  The reporter tried to leave at that point but Sandra followed her. As the reporter and cameraman retreated to their truck, Sandra finally got a number. She then stood in front of the vehicle so it couldn’t leave the parking lot. Sandra watched the reporter’s face blanch as she calmly dressed down the station manager and requested an immediate response from the station’s lawyer.

  After her conversation, she turned again to the reporter. “Ms.

  Nord-Schuler … Is that right?” Sandra waited for the affirmative reply.

  “Mizzz Schuler. Never again come at me with a camera running. If you wish to talk to me, YOU will make an appointment. YOU will never again ask questions about any of my cases or clients without permission. If I find out that you contact any of my clients without first contacting my office or me, I will see that you will be sitting in court for the next six months. Do you understand, Mizzz Nord-Schuler? Good!”

  Sandra then turned and left the stunned reporter. She knew in a way she was lucky this was a new reporter. If she had had more experience, she would never have been intimidated. But if she’d had more experience, the reporter would have been more circumspect in her initial questions.

  That was just the start of the weirdness. This morning she heard the news of the deputy sheriff’s disappearing and the closing of the school. The law firm was abuzz with rumors that people in the school were about to be arrested by the police. Jack Andrews, the school’s lawyer, called at eight-thirty and requested a settlement meeting that morning. When she questioned him on who would be there, she was surprised that neither Shermon nor Kawalski would be. She put him off for a day.

  She had to find out what was happening. She called the sheriff’s department and asked for Hakanen, the deputy she had talked to earlier. She was told he was out on the search and couldn’t be contacted. She than tried the county prosecutor’s office but was again put off. She didn’t know any other local people, so she called her office to see if they could get any information from the BCA state offices. She sat through the rest of the day, waiting for a return call and trying to discern what was happening.

  Henry had barely started to ask Makinen about yesterday’s encounter with Shermon and Kawalski when his radio sprang to life. Nancy asked him to call back on a phone line. He asked to use the Waithe’s phone. It was than he heard about another body found.

  He left immediately for the logging site. There were ten police cars, the BCA van and a TV truck pulling up by the time he got there. Someone had had the sense to pul
l a logging truck across the entrance to the landing.

  Henry had to walk a hundred yards down the muddy access road before he got a clean sight of the scene. The macabre sight of the black plastic lumps dangling six feet off the ground from the back of a skidder rolled his stomach.

  Men from the BCA and sheriff’s department were still photographing the ground around the skidder. One man was dusting the skidder for fingerprints.

  Two others were trying to make casts of some footprints and tire tracks. Henry stood back out of the way and looked at the lumps, the bodies. The bodies! All you could see sticking out of the plastic was a single white hand with a small trickle of blood dripping to a small puddle on the ground, but there were more lumps than just one body could make.

  Henry realized that Frank was standing next to him. “Do you know who the bodies are?”

  “What?”

  “The bodies?”

  Frank looked again his mouth open. “Oh, my God! You’re right. There is more than one body there.”

  In the anger of frustration, Frank erupted, “God damn it! Didn’t anyone notice there is more than one body here?” Everyone turned away. No one wanted to catch Frank’s angry glare.

  “Easy, Frank. The boys are tired. It’s the bastard doing the killing we need to get. We need to get the son of a bitch now!”

  The forensic crew seemed to have finished. They stood to the side, waiting for the okay to lower the bodies.

  Frank finally asked, “Is the coroner here yet?”

  “He’s still a few minutes away, Frank,” someone answered.

  “We’ll wait for him. I don’t want any mistakes. I don’t want this bastard to get away because some bit of evidence was lost or mishandled.”

  They waited in silence, knowing who would be found in the plastic but not wanting to know. Using the excuse of not knowing to bear the tension of the waiting, the lined up men shifted their weight from one foot to the other.