The Duce of Pentacles

by S. A. Gorden

  He had decided to keep only one piece of flesh from each of his _pleasures_. It had been so hard to decide on which piece to save. Somehow an inner voice had talked to him through his hands on which parts to carve off the bodies. It had been much harder to decide on what to keep after the frozen packages had been made.

  With his headache gone, he put Jenny's heart back inside the freezer. Upstairs he drank his coffee. Closing his eyes, he traced Lori's body with his hands. He could feel the tingling as, in his mind, he stroked her corpse searching for parts to save. Anyone watching from the window would imagine they were seeing an old man in the throws of an erotic dream, the slight smile and slow rhythmic hand motions. They would have looked around the room for a Playboy or an erotic video playing on the TV. Instead, all they would find was a Bible, a few newspapers turned to either sports or the business section, and ESPN playing on the TV.

  * * * *

  Frank and Henry walked through the back door of the closed school.

  Henry immediately noticed that the transition between the sunlit parking lot and the dark hall would blind anyone who entered for a period of time. The two men waited until their eyes adjusted to the gloomy hall. Henry saw the numbered yellow tag that marked the blood residue against the wall a few feet down from where they stood. Henry saw that the marker was opposite an empty doorway. The killer could have waited there for Al to enter the back door. Blinded by the dark hall, Al would have been easy prey.

  Henry continued down the hall with Frank following in silence. A few steps down the hallway Henry smelled ammonia. He followed his nose to an open janitorial closet. Inside was a handcart, a mop with a bucket on rollers, and a huge industrial sink that looked like everything from the acids of the chemistry lab to last week's chili had been flushed down it. Once inside the closet, Henry saw the empty gallon container marked as disinfecting cleanser resting next to the roller bucket.

  "Look's like this is where he cleaned up after ambushing Al back

  there."

  Frank didn't answer. Henry looked and saw the emptiness in Frank's eyes. He repeated the comment and finally got a noncommittal, "Yeah," from Frank.

  Henry continued down the hall to the front of the building. He walked slowly trying to decide if the new information had narrowed the suspect list any. Henry figured that the ambush in back of the school was a little too cute for someone just from the area. The killer would either have had to work in the building or had gone to school here. The school had been built thirty years ago, so the best the new information could do would be to eliminate the one or two on the list that had moved into the area in the last few years and never worked in the building.

  "We need to go over the employee list for the school again and talk to Shermon. We need some answers from him." Henry glanced at Frank. His ghastly pale face and vacant eyes stopped him in his tracks. "Are you all right, Frank?"

  "Fine. Fine. I'm fine. I think I need to get a little rest. I've been up for nearly thirty-six hours. Could you check the employee records? We could meet at my motel in a couple of hours. After going over the records together, we could then talk to Shermon. Sound okay, Henry?"

  "Sure, Frank. I'll see you in a couple of hours."

  Henry sat in front of the computer screen. He had spent the last two hours checking the school's employee records with the notes compiled by the task force. He'd had to run background checks on two of the names. The results were zip. He had been unable to eliminate any of the names on the task force list using the new information. Everyone had either gone to the high school at some time in the past or had done some work at the building. Being a small community, everyone on the list seemed to have a connection to where the bodies had been found, a cousin worked here or a neighbor over there. The task force hadn't had time to see if anyone had a strong match on knowledge about the logging site. Henry felt something picking at his mind every time he looked through the employee list at the school. Something that wouldn't come up to where he could see it. Maybe going over the records with Frank would jar whatever was picking at his mind loose?

  When Frank opened the door, he looked terrible. There seemed to be a slight tremor to his voice. The lines on his face had gone deeper, outlining his eyes and mouth with darkness.

  "Henry, I need more rest. Could we put off seeing Shermon until the morning? It's already getting late," came the hesitant whisper.

  "Sure, Frank. Do you need anything?"

  "No. Thanks for asking, but all I really need is a few hours of sleep."

  Henry went back to the station to make another run at the employee records.

  Vernon walked in at about midnight. "You need a break, Henry. How about some of the sludge your boys call coffee?"

  Rubbing the strain from his eyes, Henry replied, "Okay, Vern."

  In the small break room, they sipped the coffee and munched on stale bars from the vending machine. Vernon asked, "What did Frank find out from Shermon? He hasn't turned in a report yet."

  "What! Frank saw Shermon?"

  "Yeah. The agent keeping an eye on Shermon saw Frank go into his house late in the afternoon. He had to have been inside at least a couple of hours."

  "Damn!" The small thing picking at the back of his mind finally came to the front, Sioux Bluff! Frank had talked to him about growing up in a small town in South Dakota, possibly Sioux Bluff. It had been Sioux something or another. Frank had prided himself in how, living in a small town, everyone knew everyone else back forty years ago. Frank had just come back from a visit home. He had been depressed on how large the town had grown since the high-tech component company had started up.

  Henry hurried to his office, leaving a confused Vernon behind.

  Searching though the employee records, Henry found Jefferson William Shermon graduated from Lincoln High School, Sioux Bluff, South Dakota.

  * * * *

  Sandra looked up from her desk and stopped breathing. James Makinen stood in the doorway. She stared frozen. The pounding of her heart grew louder

  and louder until a final surge started her breathing again. She whispered, "Come in."

  He moved into the chair across from her desk. With the insight she had from her last interview with him, she saw the lethal motions of a predator and not the shuffling of a middle-aged man.

  After her second breath of air, she had recovered to the point she could ask questions. "Is there a reason you stopped by now? You were scheduled to come in next week."

  "I know the one doing the killing is going to try to get Lori." When he saw Sandra about to speak, he stopped her with a shake of his head and continued. "I don't know how I know this but I do. I know that Kawalski or Shermon had to know something about the killings, so I had a little talk with them a couple of days ago. I pushed them hard. Kawalski was murdered that night. I am not going to let the killer make the next move. I need to find the killer but ... I ... don't ... know ... how?"

  He looked at Sandra. She turned away. She wished she could think of him as an average middle-aged man. Every time she looked at him, she saw beyond the facade, a spark of light behind the eyes, a small gesture that hinted at enormous power held in check. With her eyes focused on the notes scattered across her desk, she said. "You do it the same way you handle all problems.

  You gather everything you know about the problem. You poke at it. You shift it. You sort it. When an idea comes out, you try it. If it works, fine. If it doesn't, you add it to what you know and start over again."

  Sandra glanced up from her desk. Her eyes were caught in Makinen's stare. Unable to turn away, she heard him say. "I need to see the information you have. I need you to poke and prod." He held her eyes for a ten-second eternity and then looked away.

  James left Sandra's office with barely more information than when he came. He never knew about the phone calls to the county and state attorneys.

  He never knew about the thinly veiled threat delivered to the school district's attorney, Jack Andrews, by Sandra. He never knew about the
forces released by her prodding.

  James walked the streets, trying to think. He wandered the blocks. He felt something important needed to work its way out of his mind. He used the physical exertion of his pounding steps to try to work it out. He stopped. His stomach growled from the scent of food drifting down the street. The sidewalk was filled with people drifting in and out of a corner church to their cars and back again. A basement window was open letting escape the aroma of a potluck meal and the sounds of dishes and voices.

  Shermon! Shermon in church! His mother had told him after they had left the church so many days ago that Shermon was a deacon there. A deacon had to earn his post. Records were kept by churches. Records that could mean something!

  Tom Peterson always took a few hours in the afternoon to sit and pray in the sanctuary. After his meditations he would feel strengthened, worthy of telling his flock God's word. He never understood why so many from his congregation never came back after that Sunday a few weeks ago. He took a few minutes every day to pray damnation on the two that started the exodus from the morning worship service, the evil Jezebel that started the walk out and the Ahab that followed after her. Tom had always loved the Old Testament. He understood and worshiped the power of absolute evil and the complete judgment of the ancient prophets. He prayed to God every day to give him a prophecy, a calling down of destruction. He wanted to experience the burning fire of God's wrath delivering destruction to sinners. He understood the pain felt by Jonah when after prophesying the destruction of Nineveh, they repented and God spared them. He needed to feel the power.

  Tom knelt by the altar and prayed out loud God's wrath on Lori Waithe and James Makinen. Still enraptured in the ecstasy of prayer, Tom felt a force grab him and throw him against the wall. Tom laughed aloud. God had answered him! He was one of the prophets! He controlled the wrath of God on earth!

  Tom opened his eyes. At first, they wouldn't focus. His breath had been taken away when the heavenly energy had thrown him against the wall. He smiled to himself. When his vision cleared, he would be looking at the face of God or one of his angels. He saw the face and tried to scream but not enough air had filled his lungs yet. Hands, filled with a force Tom had never experienced before, held him against the wall. The mouth on the face opened and through the enveloping blackness of shock Tom heard the words. "Fool! Trying to use God to fulfil your own petty desires. Well, learn about the real world!"

  James looked at the unconscious preacher. The idiot had fainted. Something had snapped in him when he entered the church and heard the preacher praying for Lori's death. He was glad he had been able to stop before hurting the fool. James searched the preacher's pockets for his keys. He went to the office and unlocked the door. Another key fit the file cabinet. James had to admit the fool was organized. He found files on all the deacons and on Jefferson Shermon nearly immediately. There was a photocopier in the office, so he copied the information and put the files back.

  When James got back to the preacher, he was curled on his side snoring. He slipped the keys back in his pocket and left. Back at Jeffrey Waithe's house, he started to call the churches that Shermon had previously gone to asking questions. As darkness fell, he left the papers and prowled the neighborhood.

  * * * *

  *Click.* _The silent darkened room echoes. Hands remove a card from the

  deck._

  Upon a white horse rides a skeleton in black armor. His left hand holds a black banner with a white design in its center. His right hands hold the reins of his red eyed horse. The horse stands over a crowned body, preventing a holy man and two children from touching the corpse. Although the foreground of the card is bright, the sun is setting between two towers in the distance.

  *Click.* _The card and the room plunge into blackness._

  CHAPTER 16: Death

  The first time Frank saw death on a person's face was when he was fifteen years old. His parents had left for a foreclosure auction in Sissiton. They had planned on staying overnight, spending one full day before the auction to examine the equipment for sale. It was twelve-thirty at night that the phone rang. Groggy from sleep, he had tried to answer it. None of the words said over the phone made any sense but finally he realized his sister needed help.

  He drove his old rebuilt motorcycle to his sister's. When he got to her house, all the lights were on and the front door was open. Inside he saw his four-year-old nephew, JW, standing in his pj's with his eyes wide open and his thumb in his mouth. Frank asked his nephew where his mother was. He never answered but just stared with his wide-opened eyes.

  He found Julie lying in her own blood on the living room floor next to the telephone. Her left eye had swollen shut. There was a deep matted depression on the side of her head. Small trickles of blood flowed from her eyes, ears, nose, and mouth. When her good eye focused on him, she started to talk. He bent down to hear her whispers and heard a terrible wheezing in her labored breath.

  "Take care of JW, Frank." Frank looked up and saw JW still sucking his thumb watching from the hallway.

  "I'll take care of JW, Julie. Right now we need to take care of you.

  Who did this?"

  "Timothy," was the faint reply.

  "Take it easy, Julie. I'll call for an ambulance." After making the phone call, Frank cradled her head in his lap. When he looked into her green eye, he saw death. He felt a rasp in her labored breathing. He found himself counting slowly to five between each painful inhale and exhale. Then the air went out of her body and everything stopped. He looked into her eye, it was already starting to haze.

  The ambulance crew and then the sheriff's deputies showed up. After Frank was questioned over and over, everyone became busy doing their jobs. Frank was pushed to the side of the room. He finally noticed, in the far doorway, JW standing with his thumb in his mouth. Before Frank could go to his nephew, he heard yelling from the front door.

  Timothy, his brother-in-law, burst in drunk. He screamed for everyone to leave and yelled for his lazy no good bitch of a wife to get her ass in here. He started fighting with one of the deputies. Frank never saw how he did it but Timothy was suddenly waving the deputy's gun at everyone. There was a sharp noise and Timothy was on the floor.

  Frank brought JW home with him as the morning sun started to rise in the east. His parents raised JW like he was his brother. Frank always tried to keep his promise to his sister but Frank never forgot how JW just looked on. Frank had thought something was different with JW before. After seeing him standing and watching the death of his parents, Frank was positive something wasn't quite right with his nephew's mind. JW would watch suffering with a detached cold-blooded pleasure that always drove the steel shards of the memories of the night Julie died into Frank's mind.

  Although Frank had been Julie's younger brother, he always had to take care of her. She had been too trusting, too easily persuaded. He had been able to protect her all but two times. The one time before they left for Sioux Bluff and the night she died. The last time the deputy had done what he should have been able to, avenge her death, so Frank became a cop.

  Frank could remember the faces of the thirteen other people he saw die in his life. Seven were accidents. Six were car crashes and one was a fall off the roof, which broke a neck. Three of the remaining six were heart attacks. The forth was a drug overdose. The last two deaths drove him from the streets and to his current job as a BCA agent.

  It was midnight. He was a training officer for a young recruit. The rookie had only been on active duty with the force for twelve days. They got a silent alarm from a downtown drug store. When they pulled up, they found a stolen car had been driven through the front of the store and a number of figures running down a dark back alley. Frank yelled to the rookie to wait for backup and called in a report of the situation to the station. When Frank got out of the car, the rookie started running down the alley. Frank had nightmares of the run down the alley. Never able to catch up to his partner. Just seeing the flash of his outline race bet
ween the dark shadows. Past the corner of a building a flash and the echoing report of a shot came through the darkness. Tripping over the sprawled body of his partner, Frank smelled the blood and cordite. Before he could check his partner, the gun opened up again. Frank felt the whoosh of a bullet speed past his head and the warmth of his own pee running down his leg from the fear. He emptied his gun at the flashes. The silence was absolute.

  When Frank's eyes adjusted again to the darkness after the bright flashes of gunfire, he saw his partner. His mouth would open with every gasp for air he made. The rookie's eyes caught the few rays of light in the dark alley. They luminesced with a fevered light. As Frank reached for him, he died.

  Frank never knew how long he knelt next to his partner but finally a rustling made its way into his conscious. With numb fingers, he emptied the casings out of his revolver and loaded it with fresh bullets. Frank crept to the end of the alley. There the killer crawled, an empty gun by his side. The killer sensed he was not alone. He rolled to his side and looked up at Frank. Frank heard the twelve-year-old killer whimper, stick his thumb in his mouth, and die.

  Frank shook the memories from his mind. He had an old nemesis to meet. Someone he could barely remember from his past long ago. Someone who had destroyed his sister, changed his life, and now threatened the existence of the only one he had pledged to protect. Frank got out of his car, walked to

  the door and opened it. A blow hit him in the side. From the floor he looked up at the old man. In his hands, the killer had a twenty-two pistol with a plastic milk jug taped to its muzzle. Frank knew the combination made a perfect silent weapon. He felt the damage the bullet had done, tearing his insides apart. He felt death coming. He looked at the old man. "I should have killed you, Billy, years ago."