Broken Heartland

by J. M. Hayes

  “When you say he took it hard…?”

  “No way.” She understood what he was alluding to immediately and waved a hand in dismissal. “Mark’s not the suicidal type. Besides, I told him from the start we were only temporary.”

  It seemed Mad Dog might not be the only guy who refused to hear what he didn’t want to. “But you haven’t heard from him and neither have his folks. And my place got trashed. Does that sound like Mark to you?”

  “You’re starting to scare me.”

  Mad Dog had been looking for a thoughtless boy who hadn’t fulfilled an obligation. But this was turning into something else. He didn’t think it was possible, but he had to ask. “Mark wouldn’t take his anger at you out on me and my place, would he?”

  “No. Mark really likes you. He thinks you’re way cool. He’s been telling me how he wants to have a wolf and raise buffalo of his own some day.”

  “Then where would he go? Who would he talk to when he realized you weren’t going to turn into forever?”

  She stopped biting her lip and started on her finger. “I don’t know.” She shook her head. “Most of his old buddies have moved away. He and Galen Siegrist graduated together. They’re fairly close.”

  Mad Dog said he’d ask Siegrist.

  “Or Mr. Gamble.”

  “Gamble, the music teacher at the high school?”

  “Yeah. Mark’s got a nice voice. He talked about improving it so we could pursue a music career together. But that was weeks ago. And Gamble would probably make him sing hymns, not honky-tonk or heavy metal.”

  “I should hope so.” A mellow baritone interrupted them and Mad Dog turned to discover Pastor Goodfellow in the door to the choir room. That was a relief. For just a second, he’d thought he’d seen old Aldus P. Goodfellow’s lips move in that brooding portrait on the wall.

  ***

  Mr. Juhnke led the sheriff to the soundproofed room behind the high school’s assembly hall stage. Juhnke knocked, politely, but he didn’t give anyone time to answer before opening the door.

  Chorus was not in session. Three young girls were sitting on the risers where singers usually stood.

  “And so I said, like in your dreams….” The blonde one trailed off as she realized she’d lost the attention of her audience.

  “Where is everyone?” Juhnke said.

  The blonde got to her feet. She was wearing a modest navy blue skirt, a white blouse, and penny loafers. Were penny loafers back?

  The sheriff wasn’t good at keeping track of the names of kids in the community. They grew up too fast. But this one was pretty obviously a Showalter. He’d had a classmate, a Showalter, who’d looked almost identical to this one, right down to the penny loafers.

  “Uh,” she said. It was obvious she didn’t want to field this question. “Some of them were hurt in that bus crash this morning.”

  “So that leaves, what, six missing?” Juhnke said. “And Gamble. He’s supposed to be teaching this class. Where is Mr. Gamble?”

  The girl fluttered her hands, another Showalter trait. Lord, the sheriff thought, this would be his Showalter’s granddaughter—proof he didn’t need about how time flew.

  “I haven’t seen him all day.”

  Juhnke was incredulous. Also embarrassed, if the sheriff was reading him right. This was Juhnke’s school and he was supposed to know what was going on. He was the man in charge, but things were happening on his watch that he wasn’t aware of. That was bad enough, but having the sheriff right here to witness his failure, that made it intolerable.

  “Let me get this straight,” Juhnke said. “You girls are enrolled in chorus this hour, right?”

  There were bright red splotches on the Showalter girl’s cheeks. Her companions kind of sidled off, out of Juhnke’s direct gaze, as if he might somehow, later, fail to recall their involvement.

  “Yes.” The girl’s voice cracked a little.

  “But your teacher and some of your classmates aren’t here and so you’re just sitting around chatting and not reporting their absence to the office?”

  “Well, they usually aren’t here.”

  “Excuse me?” Juhnke seemed on the verge of a Krakatoa impersonation.

  The sheriff decided to get involved. “You know where they are?”

  “Well, sure,” the girl said. “Mr. Gamble left me in charge, so I didn’t think there was anything to report.”

  “Where are they?” the sheriff prompted.

  “Our voices, they aren’t full enough,” she tried to explain.

  Juhnke was red as a Kansas sunset and sputtering. Maybe Krakatoa wasn’t big enough. Maybe he would mimic a supernova.

  “Tell us where they are, please,” the sheriff said.

  “Choir practice. It’s a cappella.”

  “Choir?” Juhnke’s voice was all funny and high pitched, like steam coming from a safety valve. The girls jumped, but he hadn’t really gone off. Not yet. “Choir, not chorus?”

  “Where’s this choir practice held?” the sheriff asked again.

  “In the basement, Sheriff English, sir. In that old classroom next to the boiler.”

  “We don’t have a choir,” Juhnke stammered. “And we haven’t had classes in the basement for years.” The sheriff didn’t think Juhnke was going to explode, after all. Not until he found Gamble, anyway.

  “You don’t have one of the school buses you had yesterday, either,” the sheriff said. “Come on. Let’s take a look.”

  ***

  Heather found the Dodge wagon out behind the Texaco. Except it wasn’t the Texaco anymore. Now it was just GAS —FOOD, thanks to Texaco’s merger with Chevron. Gas—Food didn’t work for Heather. She wanted the Texaco back. She wanted Buffalo Springs to be just the way it always had been. She knew, when she let herself think about it, that what she really wanted was a Buffalo Springs with her mother in it. She sighed and parked around by the entrance to the restrooms. When she got out and advanced on the Dodge, she kept a hand on the edge of her unbuttoned jacket, ready to flip the badge and justify her presence. No one paid her any attention.

  The school bus wasn’t there. It must have been towed back to the bus barn.

  The Dodge was almost unrecognizable. Heather wasn’t a car expert, but it was the only vehicle back there that was new, black, and covered with chunks of fresh earth and vegetation. She tried the driver’s door. It wouldn’t open. Neither would the back door. They weren’t locked, they were buckled.

  There wasn’t any glass in the windows, but she didn’t want to crawl in if it wasn’t necessary. Too many shards, even if it was safety glass. She tried the rear lift gate, but it wouldn’t budge either. The back door on the passenger’s side was open a crack. She got both hands on it and pried and it reluctantly gave way. She looked for blood, oil, or other unpleasant substances that might spoil her clothes, didn’t see any, and crawled inside.

  Englishman had checked the glove box and the sun visor for registration papers. That didn’t mean she shouldn’t look there again. She wormed her way between the front seats, brushing aside the spray of safety glass with her jacket sleeve. Nothing in either location, nor in the doors’ cubby holes either. She did find a crumpled Jack-in-the-Box sack under the driver’s seat, empty but for dirty napkins. She crawled out of the car and set it out on the grass to take back as evidence.

  The back seats were folded down to increase storage space. Presumably, the boy who died had been tied up and tossed back there. She opened both back seats, though, just in case. And found nothing. She folded them down again and ducked back inside to examine the rear. There was a storage compartment under the carpets there. Only, of course, it was meant to be opened from the other direction. The floor accordioned up toward her. She was still young and limber, though, and she managed to open it without cutting herself on the jagged strip of roof that appeared to have been opened by a gigantic can opener. There was something in there, netted to the passenger’s side—a compact ice chest, it looked like. Getting it ou
t and into her half of the rear compartment was another struggle.

  Someone had wrapped the ice chest with clear tape and then written, over and over again, “Sealed for delivery,” along the edge in magic marker. She thought the handwriting was something the recipient would recognize, and was meant to ensure this package would arrive unopened.

  Now, what to do with it? Benteen County didn’t have a crime lab. The chest had to be opened, though her dad wasn’t likely to think she was the one who should do it. But he was busy, and once she knew what was inside—drugs, money, a decapitated head—Heather would know what to do next. She should call Englishman, she supposed, not that he could do anything with it she couldn’t do herself. She got her cell phone out and thought about it for a minute. Then, since her phone took pictures, she documented the container before her miniature Swiss Army knife slit neatly through the tape.

  It was cold in the ice chest, but there was more water in there than ice. It should have gotten where it was going before now. A small box swam atop the ice water. And an envelope. She made digital images of both, then opened the box. It was filled with four tiny test tubes. Each held a nearly colorless fluid. None were labeled. She took another picture before closing the box and returning it to the chest.

  That left the envelope. It was unmarked on the outside and sealed, but there was no point in stopping now. She used the knife again. A single sheet of plain white paper lay within. It wasn’t addressed to anyone and it wasn’t signed. But she knew who should get the test tubes now—Doc at the coroner’s office, if he was there. She’d call first, right after she called Englishman to tell him what the note said.

  This was getting seriously weird. She reread the paper as she photographed it with her cell phone. It didn’t sound any less strange when she read it out loud.

  “I will not guarantee the integrity of stem cells transported in this manner.”

  ***

  “Someone changed the lock.” Juhnke was still steaming. No doors in Buffalo Springs High should fail to open to his ring of keys.

  The sheriff was getting tired of traipsing around the old building on Juhnke’s heels. He didn’t even know if this mystery choir had anything to do with his deputy’s accident, though it was certainly suspicious. If it wasn’t related, he needed to turn his attention lots of other places, and quick. “I could shoot it open,” he offered, putting his hand on the butt of his .38.

  “Oh no,” Juhnke said, taking him seriously. “That’s not necessary. There’s another entrance.”

  “I know,” the sheriff said. “The outdoor stair at the back of the building.”

  “Of course, they could have changed locks back there, too.”

  “Yeah,” the sheriff said, “but there’s a way into the cage that surrounds the stairs that doesn’t require a key. Once inside the fence, we should be able to see what’s going on through the windows. If we can’t and your keys won’t open the basement door, I know how to jimmy those windows.”

  Juhnke raised his eyebrows.

  “Hey, I was a student here. Remember?”

  “And a trouble maker, it sounds like.”

  The sheriff led the way down the front hall and out the exit. “Not really. But this is a small school and an old building. All of us knew its secrets.”

  “Everyone but the administrators, apparently,” Juhnke said.

  Someone ran over a handful of black walnuts on Main Street. The explosive cracks rang across the school yard and the sheriff grinned as Juhnke ducked. Grinned, until he noticed there weren’t any cars on Main. No one was there to run over walnuts and cause gunshot-like explosions. Nothing explained the sounds, except maybe a real gun that might be somewhere inside the school.

  ***

  “Mad Dog,” Pastor Goodfellow said. “You’re the last person I expected to find visiting God’s house.”

  Mad Dog could believe that.

  “Morning, Pastor. Seems to me every house is God’s house. Besides, you’ve got that big welcome sign by the front door. I didn’t think anyone would mind.”

  “We welcome all who come here to accept Jesus. Is that what brings you?”

  Mad Dog shook his head. “Not today, thanks. I’m not inclined to join a faith whose followers would put an obscene sign in my front yard, kill small animals, and poison the water bowl by my back door. I was looking for Mark Brown. He’s supposed to be keeping an eye on my place. His dad thought he might be here listening to Ms. Epperson practice the piano.”

  Goodfellow favored him with a patient smile. “Each of us is granted free will. We may use it to accept Jesus, or not. But I assure you, no true Christian would do the things of which you accuse us. As for Mark, alas, he hasn’t accepted salvation here either. Nor has he been present in this house of worship today, as you can see for yourself.”

  Another man stuck his head in the door, a little fellow with a bad comb-over. “Don’t waste time with this guy. Just get him out of here.”

  Mad Dog didn’t recognize the man. “So the welcome sign is only for show?”

  The man who wanted Mad Dog gone didn’t answer. He just looked at Goodfellow and said, “I mean now,” before he disappeared back into the hall.

  “My apologies,” Goodfellow said. “Mr. Dunbar could have been more polite, but I suppose he’s within his rights. He’s a representative of the political action committee renting our facilities today. Since they’ve brought in local volunteers who are trying to put your brother out of a job, your presence could hamper the enthusiasm of their efforts.”

  Mad Dog nodded. “Not a problem, Pastor. I’ve been thrown out of better places. You prefer me to use a back door?”

  Goodfellow’s smile was weak. “If you don’t mind,” he said, “there’s an exit at the end of the hall.”

  The Epperson girl grabbed her purse and put her arm through Mad Dog’s. “I don’t think I want to be here anymore, either,” she said. “Let’s go. I’ll help you find Mark.” She edged Mad Dog out of the practice room and into the corridor. Dunbar was tapping a foot, arms folded, a few steps back into the church.

  “You know,” she told Mad Dog, louder than was necessary for him to hear, “I wasn’t planning to vote. But now I want to go right over and cast my ballot for Englishman.”

  They went out the rear exit into bright sun and a gentle fall breeze. Someone slammed the door behind them.

  ***

  Screams. More walnuts that weren’t walnuts. Shouts. Pounding footsteps. A kid, a boy with red hair and pimples, came careening around the corner. When he saw the sheriff and the principal he stopped and pointed behind him. He made some vague whimpering noises and then started to cry.

  “Gunshots,” the sheriff said.

  “Yes,” Juhnke said. “I think so.”

  “You have a plan for a situation like this?”

  “We evacuate everyone to the gym, or the lunchroom if the gym isn’t safe. Then we lockdown. No one goes in or out until it’s over.”

  The sheriff nodded. “Do that,” he said, “and take this boy with you.” The boy was still trying to tell them things that the sheriff needed to know, but the kid was unintelligible in his terror. The sheriff couldn’t wait.

  The shouts and cries seemed to be coming from behind the school. Maybe down in that basement where the nonexistent choir was supposedly practicing. The sheriff took no chances. He pulled his .38 and went around the corner, crouched in a shooter’s stance. Two more boys were hiding against the wall near the back of the building. When they saw the sheriff, one threw himself on the ground and the other just froze. But only for a moment. Then he ran toward the sheriff.

  “In the basement,” the boy was saying. “Someone’s killing people in the basement.”

  The sheriff made sure this kid, and the one on the ground, didn’t have anything in their hands. When guns started going off in a school, they were probably being fired by kids who might look just like these two.

  “Who’s shooting?” the sheriff asked. “How many g
uns?”

  The kid shook his head. “I don’t know. But they got Freddie. We were in the shop, out back.” Vocational Agriculture and shop classes were still taught in the metal building behind the school. The sheriff had built his mother a pair of awful end tables there that she had prized all her life.

  “Freddie came stumbling up the steps and fell down.” The kid gestured to where his friend still hugged the ground. “We saw him and heard the shots and we just ran for it.”

  There were still a lot of voices coming from back there. No more gunshots, though. The sheriff was thankful for that. “Get your friend,” he told the boy. “Take him around front and go to the gym. I’ll cover you.”

  The sheriff and the boy went to the corner, where they practically had to claw the second kid off the ground. “It’s all right,” the sheriff told them. “I’ll take care of it. This is my job.” He kept one eye on the boys and one on the corner, his .38 up and cocked. Once off the ground, the second boy was ready to run. The two of them disappeared around the front of the school.

  It was his job, but how would he do it on a day when he didn’t have any deputies? The sheriff took a deep breath and peered behind the building.

  Another boy lay on the paved drive between the main building and the shop. His tan shirt was stained with blood and he was feebly trying to crawl away.

  One thing at a time, the sheriff told himself. He grabbed his phone and hit the button that dialed his office.

  “Mrs. Kraus,” he said. She was trying to tell him something about a problem with the election but he didn’t give her the chance. “There’s been a shooting at the high school.” She shut up in mid-sentence. “Get the highway patrol to send us any available officers immediately. And get an ambulance. Call Doc and tell him we’ve got at least one wounded. Then find me a deputy…but don’t send Heather.”

  He slapped the phone shut, holstered his gun and went. There was a kid out there who had to be extricated from the killing zone.

  ***

  Heather called her dad first. He had either turned off his cell or was on the line, because it went straight to his voice mail. She knew how busy he must be, so she gave him a brief summary of what she’d found and what she planned to do with it. When she called Doc at the coroner’s office, his line was busy. He must have a cell, but she didn’t know the number. When she tried to get it from Mrs. Kraus, the lines to the sheriff’s office were busy, too. She tried Doc again. No answer this time. Then the sheriff’s office was still busy.