Susan owned and managed a local bookstore, Browse and Bargain Books. Her ex-husband, Harold, ran away with a high school senior after seventeen months of marriage. Mine had lasted three years, but only because I worked like a dog to keep it going. Harold had been kind enough to stay out of the picture, but mine kept trying to beat me to a pulp. It all ended a few months back when I had finally had enough. He won’t be bothering me again.
Susan was wearing a pair of mid-thigh shorts in multicolored spandex, with a matching halter top. Her brassy, carrot-colored hair was subdued with dye to a pleasant titian hue. Her bright green contacts sparkled in the muted light of the two small lamps in the office.
“You look great, as usual. In my defense, I tried to shop this morning.”
I was telling her the aborted-shopping story when Jasmine arrived with a huge bowl of popcorn, butterless of course. I went to the kitchen to get drinks and to melt some butter. This time, because of my weight loss, Jasmine couldn’t fuss about nutrition. In the past eight weeks, I hadn’t gained an ounce, and I am keeping my fingers crossed that I don’t pile the twenty or so pounds back on.
“That bitch Estelle is going to hear from me tomorrow,” Susan declared. “I’m also informing her I’ll never buy anything in her shop again. Ever!”
“You are a businesswoman, Susan. Stay cool, calm, and collected. You can’t continue to fight my battles for me, as you did in school. Doesn’t Estelle buy books from you?”
“I’ll throw her out the door if she ever puts one foot in my store again. I mean it!”
“Then Estelle’s cousins won’t buy from you, and your cousins won’t buy from her. Don’t do this, Susan. You know how these feuds can escalate and last for years. Promise me you won’t say a word.”
“You’re going to let her get away with how she treated you?”
“Oh no,” I said softly. “I promise you Estelle will regret this morning. I’ll take care of her in my own way and time.”
“Why don’t we three go to Waycross tomorrow? They have a better selection. We’ll spend the day trying on dresses!”
Susan’s eyes were bright from just anticipating a shopping spree. I shuddered.
“Shopping is your bag, not mine. You couldn’t pay me enough to spend all day trying on clothes. I’ll pop into K-mart tomorrow. If it’s good enough for Jaclyn Smith, it’s good enough for me.”
Jasmine looked doubtful. “You don’t really believe she wears off-the-rack clothes, do you? Or, for that matter, that she actually designs the ones she hawks?”
“Maybe one or two,” I said, smiling.
Susan watched her dream of shopping with us die and changed the subject.
“Did you know that Norma Jean Tramore is pregnant?”
“No,” I said, shocked. I quickly counted on my fingers. “Randy has been dead six months! She didn’t say a word when I ran into her while I was getting my hair cut last month. That’s a shame. Randy always wanted a son. Maybe it will be a boy.”
“I doubt if Randy had anything to do with it,” Susan said with a winsome smile. “She’s barely showing. You have to be an expert such as I to even observe the subtle changes in her waist and bustline.”
“Is she dating anyone special?” I was trying to remember if I had seen her with a man in tow. I couldn’t remember one.
“I have it from a good authority that she and Leon Kirkland are an item. He teaches history to tenth-graders and she is his assistant. This, of course, is not common knowledge circulating freely in their circle of friends. I understand they have been very discreet.”
“How discreet is getting pregnant? Do you think that Sara knows? She and her puppy, Sherlock, are in my beginners obedience class that meets every Thursday afternoon. God!
“I wish you hadn’t told me,” I went on, feeling equal amounts of rage against Leon and sadness for Sara. “She told me a few weeks ago that she and Leon adored Sherlock, that she shared my lessons with him and they were both working with Sherlock so he can pass the test next month. I won’t be able to face her next Thursday!”
“Good lord, Jo Beth, you take incidents such as these so seriously. Try to be more cosmopolitan. It’s not like we invented the eternal triangle here. It happens all over and usually with more frequency than you suspect. I know you’re blaming Leon, but what if it’s Sara’s fault?”
Seeing me staring openmouthed at Susan, Jasmine intervened.
“I think Sara is nice. I’ve spoken to her several times. I know that you really don’t know what is happening within a marriage, but she sounded so happy. I don’t believe that she could have anything to do with Leon’s possible defection.”
“And I don’t either!” I angrily agreed.
“Ladies, I apologize. I didn’t mean to ruffle your feathers. I thought we were discussing the issues. See how easy it is to take sides, because you’re acquainted with one or the other? I suggest we change the subject.”
“Good idea.”
Thirty minutes into Dark Victory,starring Bette Davis—a classic whose lines we almost know by heart, we’ve seen it so often—the phone rang.
“It’s Hank,” he announced quickly. “I’m damn glad to hear your voice. I’m at Dunston County High. We have a barricaded suspect with an unknown number of hostages and we’re evacuating all the other rooms as we speak. Some hysterical woman kept screaming that the perp walked into the classroom with a large bloodhound and an even larger shotgun. She saw them from across the hall and ran. I thought it might be you, so that’s why I’m relieved to hear your voice. I gotta go.”
4
“Blood Will Flow Like Wine”
August 23, Friday, 8:30 P.M.
“Hank!” I yelled loudly, to keep his attention. I knew he was trying to mentally review a dozen procedures, to make sure he was handling this right. It was sweet of him to worry that I was the one inside with the bloodhound. The phone call had wasted valuable time and he didn’t need me now screaming in his ear.
“I gotta go,” he repeated.
“Wait, this is pertinent! What classroom is barricaded?”
“Room 123. All it has is ‘History’ on the door. I don’t know who is inside and what is happening. Our first priority is to clear the building.”
“I know whose room it is, and who went in with the bloodhound and why. I’m on my way. Give me twenty minutes.”
“Who’s in there?”
“A history teacher, Leon Kirkland, his teacher’s aide, Norma Jean Tramore, and Sara, Leon Kirkland’s wife. She’s the one with the shotgun and the bloodhound. What I don’t know is, why are other people there at this time of night?”
“It’s student-orientation night and their parents are supposed to come with them. School starts next week.”
“That explains it. I’ll be there ASAP.”
“What do you think is gonna happen? Give me a clue, here.”
“I think that blood is going to flow like wine. Don’t storm the room. I want to try to talk to Sara.” I hung up.
I turned to see two faces staring my way and two motionless bodies in the dim light.
“It seems that your gossipmonger was wrong on one point, Susan. It’s obvious that Sara is now aware of what is being bandied about.”
“She has the bloodhound with her?” Susan sounded as if she couldn’t believe her ears.
“Of course,” I said calmly. “Sherlock is family.”
“I’m going with you,” Jasmine stated.
“So am I!” Susan said, looking defiant.
“All right. Jasmine, get the car. I have to change. Bring my rescue suit.”
Susan followed me into the bedroom. I pulled on jeans and a T-shirt.
“Why are you wearing your rescue suit? You told me that it isn’t bulletproof.”
“It isn’t bulletproof, but it will help to slow down the pellets. I just hope the gun is loaded with bird shot and not double aught for big game.”
“What’s the difference?”
“Simple.
Life or death. Life maybe, if you’re shot with bird shot from twenty feet, death if it’s double aught. It also depends on the pattern that the gun discharges, but any round at point-blank range would be deadly.”
“Why are you doing this? It’s not your job. Let one of Hank’s men, or Hank, do it. It’s asinine to volunteer!”
“I’ll try not to stand too close,” I said dryly. “I know what you are thinking, that I’m doing it because I’m a hotdogger showing off. It’s not true. Think it through. Hank is the most sensitive man in the entire department in regard to women’s needs. But do you really believe that Sara is going to listen to any man, hand over her shotgun, and give up?”
“I don’t know. What makes you think that you can do it better?”
“Because I’ve been there, done that, dammit! I like to think that Sara is a friend and just might listen. I hand-fed Sherlock a bottle four times a day for two weeks, when his mother didn’t have enough milk for him. I want to try to get him out of that room alive.”
Jasmine blew the horn at the gate and Susan and I ran for the car. The three miles to the school passed quickly. I admired Jasmine’s driving. She was twenty-five years old before she learned to drive. She had asked me to teach her, and I’m so thankful that I turned her down. We had a budding friendship, and teaching a friend is dangerous to the relationship. Hank had taken over and she was a smooth, competent driver. She could even back the car quickly without weaving all over the road, which is more than I can say about some people I know.
The block surrounding the school was in chaos. Lights were pouring out every window, people were crowded on the lawn, and cars were parked and abandoned everywhere.
“Leave it here,” I told Jasmine. “Just leave the keys inside and double-park. We’ll have to hoof it.”
We cut across the administration building’s parking lot, down the south alley, and on to the back lawn, where I could see several of the local police trying to hold the impatient crowd back.
Every mother and father who didn’t have a teenager in tow, or had no idea where that teenager was, was demanding to know if his or hers was being held hostage. The officers trying to keep the parents under control had no idea who was in there or what was happening.
I was saying, “Excuse me,” continually to cut through the crowd. Susan and Jasmine were trying to ease by in my wake.
I had bad luck and ran into sweaty, beer-belly Floyd Graham, one of Balsa City’s finest. He hates my guts. He was one of Bubba’s drinking buddies, meeting behind Buford Sr.’s barn from the age of twelve. He pushed a stiff arm into my chest and stopped me on a dime.
“Hold it right there, gal. Where you think you’re going?”
His body odor plus his bad breath made me fall back a step, to catch a clear lungful of air. Floyd advanced and still kept his hand on my breastbone.
“The sheriff wants to see me. Let me by.”
“I see you have on your orange playsuit that you sport around in, but what I don’t see is any of your mangy hounds. Gonna use your own nose this time?”
“Let me pass, you poor excuse for a human being, or so help me God, Floyd, I’ll plant your balls in your rectum. Get out of my way!”
Susan suddenly appeared right in his face and let go with a bloodcurdling scream. It startled Floyd so, he stumbled backward, almost losing his balance. It was so unexpected that I stood riveted in place. Both Susan and Jasmine grabbed my arms and began to propel me across the lawn. Soon the three of us were running freely for the back steps of the school.
“Warn me next time,” I told Susan, panting, when we arrived at the door. “I still can’t hear in my left ear!”
“Just remember, surprise works just as well as threats!” She cackled with glee. “I could get into this very easily. See what you’ve been missing by not taking me along?”
“Oh God,” I said to Jasmine. “I’ve created a monster. Give me some help here.”
“Susan, you were marvelous!” Jasmine enthused.
“You call that help?”
“Here comes Hank,” Susan said.
He frowned as he approached us. “What are you doing in your rescue suit? You don’t possibly think I’m going to let you walk into that room, do you? Why did you bring Jasmine and Susan? I’ve got enough to worry about in trying to figure out who in my department is informing GIB of my every move. Fray is on the way.”
John Fray is in charge of the Waycross field office of the GBI, Georgia Bureau of Investigation. We call them GIB, and the FBI, the Federal Bureau of Investigation, FIB, to show our contempt.
“Where is he now?” Agent Fray is a horse’s ass and causes me a great deal of distress when he pokes his nose into our local problems.
“About ten minutes out of Waycross, burning up the pavement to get here. He’s bringing a quote, negotiator, unquote. I’m not to do anything until he arrives.”
“We have a good forty minutes. Which room are they in?” I asked, peering down the hall. Lieutenant J. C. Sirmans, Hank’s second-in-command, was leaning against the wall about fifteen feet away, at the next juncture, a hall leading to the left. I started his way.
“Jo Beth,” Hank whispered urgently. “Come back. I don’t want you walking in there. Maybe we should wait for the negotiator.”
I walked back and stood toe to toe with him and put my hands on my hips.
“How many do you think will die in there if we wait too long, or get Sara more agitated than she already is? I’ll talk to her outside the door. Let’s see what she has to say. I will seem less threatening than a stranger.”
He laid a hand on my shoulder. “I knew I wouldn’t win this argument from the get go. If you’re going to talk to her, I’m going to know what is going on.”
He motioned to J.C. and he began to tiptoe toward us.
“J.C. has a wire. J.C., I want to be able to hear what she’s saying.”
“Hurry up, J.C,” I said impatiently, “the meter is running.” He picked up the kit, and began taping the mike to my T-shirt, and dropped the battery pack in an inside pocket of my jumpsuit. In less than five minutes, he announced that he could hear me fine. He had the equipment spread out on a desk in the first room to the right.
“Just to the door, Sidden,” Hank said gruffly.
“Gotcha,” I replied, crossing my fingers in front of me as I walked slowly up the hall.
When I reached room 123, I placed my ear against the door and strained to hear through the thick oak. This building was built in the 1940s, and had been renovated from time to time, but all the doors, casings, and window frames were the original oak, which seemed impervious to time.
I knocked softly three times and listened. I could hear nothing. I turned the knob slowly and found the door was not locked. I glanced back to see if Hank was watching me, but he must have been in the schoolroom listening with J.C.
I put my lips to the crack between the door and the frame.
“Sara, it’s Jo Beth, your dog trainer. Can I come in and talk?”
I placed my ear at the crack and heard nothing. I waited a few seconds and repeated my message.
I glanced at my watch. Ten of my forty minutes were gone. What could they be doing in there? I agonized again over how many parents and children were inside with Sara, her bloodhound, her bridegroom, and his paramour.
I was undecided. Should I or shouldn’t I? I wasn’t getting anywhere standing outside the door. Surely Sara wouldn’t shoot me if I eased inside. No, I couldn’t count on Sara. She also wouldn’t walk into her husband’s classroom with a shotgun, but it seemed she had, so guessing what she would do was out the window.
I had to make a decision. Fray would be here soon and he would take over, and Hank and I would be shunted to the sidelines to stand and helplessly watch whatever unfolded.
There were faint noises coming from the street. Car motors running, an occasional horn, and some low murmurs from the restless crowd.
The almost silence began to gnaw at me. The halls
, during school hours usually teeming with children’s voices and locker doors slamming, started feeling spooky. I found myself holding my breath so I could listen more intently.
I braced myself, took a deep breath, and pulled the doorknob and eased the cracked door open. I entered and silently closed the door before I turned around and looked into the room. The adrenaline was flooding my circulatory system nicely and I sucked in another deep breath before trusting my voice.
“Hello, Sara.”
5
“Would She or Wouldn’t She?”
August 23, Friday, 9:20 P.M.
The three major participants in this tragedy were up front, by Leon’s desk. Leon and Norma Jean were sitting with their legs crossed, their knees against the wall and their backs to the room. The blackboard was above them. They both turned their heads my way, and they looked scared to death. Their hands were folded in their laps and they sat like statues. After recognizing me, they swiveled their heads back in front of them and stared at the wall.
Sara was turned, facing the door, looking at me and slouching in Leon’s chair, the shotgun resting across her legs with her finger inside the trigger guard. Her face was pale, but otherwise she looked calm and exactly like she did when she tilted her head a little to listen to my advice in the north field where I held my training class.
I took a quick glance to the left to see how many were in the room. They were clumped together in the right rear of the room, each in a seat with their arms folded. I counted a total of twelve. They were sitting very still but I could hear that some of them were sniffling, whimpering, and softly sobbing. I didn’t have time to see if I knew them or whether they were parents or students. I turned my gaze on Sara.
She smiled at me. “What are you doing here, Jo Beth? Have I got one of your relatives sitting back there?”
“No.” My voice was giving me trouble, and I coughed to cover my nervousness. “I came to help you.” I glanced down at Sherlock, who was curled in sleep. His lead was fastened to her chair.
“Why did you bring Sherlock?”
“I almost didn’t, but now I’m glad I did. If this family is breaking up, he should be on hand to see it, shouldn’t he?”
A Bloodhound to Die for Page 3
