A slight jab in the back quickened my steps.
We approached a building that was open on one side. In the bright moonlight I saw the empty hog crates where the animals had spent their entire lives. What a place to die.
No, I stopped the thought before it had formed. I wasn’t going to die. I’d fight with all I had. All I had to do was get away from Charles and his knife.
When we reached the building, Charles shoved me up against the fence separating the stalls. Holding me in place from behind with his body, he reached around and tied my wrists to the fence with more tape. I squirmed against his weight, but he grabbed my hair and yanked my head back. I stopped struggling.
Charles anchored me to the fence. “If you’ll excuse me, I have to get things set up,” he whispered in my ear before he walked away.
I heard Charles making noise in the building behind me and a sense of urgency shook me from the inside out. Think. How am I going to get out of this? I pulled against the tape.
I felt the tape wrapped around the fence loosen. I tugged again and wiggled my wrists. I felt the tape on the fence give. I took a quick look over my shoulder at Charles, still arranging the scene of my hanging. No longer attached to the fence, I worked my wrists back and forth, loosening the tape. When I had enough space, I pulled one hand free. Another quick look over my shoulder and I took off, running for all I was worth.
I ran toward the lagoon. If I reached the other side of the lagoon, I could hide near the old trailer. Maybe even find a phone inside.
My legs pumped and my muscles began to burn. I didn’t have much time. Any minute Charles would turn around and find me gone.
“Hey!” Charles yelled.
Guess that minute is now.
I ran harder when I heard footsteps pounding behind me. I’d almost reached the lagoon when Charles tackled me, knocking me down. In the bright moonlight I saw his knife spin over my head and into the lagoon. He flipped me over and gave me a hard right to the jaw. I saw stars, but not the ones in the sky. They floated like tiny lights behind my eyelids. Shaking them away, I opened my eyes to see Charles’s face looming above me.
His eyes were wild with rage and his lips were pulled back, exposing his teeth in a bizarre grin. And his hands held my shoulders to the ground.
I bucked and kicked, trying to throw him off, but he was too heavy.
He yelled and screamed at me, but I didn’t hear the words through my fear. His face got closer and closer as he shrieked.
Raising my head, I smashed my forehead into his nose. Charles reared back and grabbed his nose in pain, releasing my shoulders. No longer pinned beneath him, I jerked my knee up, making contact with his lower back. The force threw him off-balance, and with a push, I shoved him off me. Rolling the other way, I crawled away, trying to get to my feet.
I managed to stand, but he was on me in an instant. His hands tightened around my throat and he shook me like a dog shaking a rat.
“I’m going to kill you with my bare hands,” he shouted, the blood dripping from his nose. “I’m going to throw your wretched body in the sewer where it belongs.”
I clawed at his wrists with my hands, fighting his grip.
“Then I’m going after the evil woman who spawned you—the old lady, your beloved grandmother. She’ll know the fires of hell before I’m finished with her.”
His words finally penetrated my fear-soaked brain. Abby—he planned to kill Abby!
A scream of pure animal rage ripped from my raw throat. And with it, I brought my knee up with a force I didn’t know I possessed.
A howl tore from Charles while his hands fell away and he dropped like bag of cement. He rolled on the ground in pain, closer and closer to the edge of the lagoon.
Rubbing my aching throat, I staggered after him.
Standing above him, I looked down at him.
His face, contorted in pain, was smeared with blood from his bleeding nose. His eyes were scrunched shut.
This was the man who’d killed Brian and Fletcher Beasley; who’d scared a harmless old man to death; and had caused misery in the lives of innocent people.
“I’m not the one who belongs in a sewer,” I said, placing my foot on his hip. “You are.”
Using all the energy I had left, I pushed against his body with my foot and watched, with a grim smile, as he rolled off the edge of the lagoon and into the hog shit.
Thirty-Four
“I wasn’t going to let him drown, honest,” I explained in a sincere voice. “See.” I pointed at the ground. “I have a rope. The rope he planned on using to hang me. But you got here before I had the chance to throw it to him.”
The dark warrior had finally shown up, a short time after Charles took his header into the lagoon, and now I was trying to convince him I really hadn’t tried to commit murder.
Comacho eyed me skeptically.
Bill was at PP International too. Right now, he refereed a dispute between Alan and another one of the deputies. Their voices carried to where we stood.
“You take him in your car,” said the young deputy.
“No. Put him in yours,” Alan replied.
“But I cleaned mine out today,” the other deputy whined.
“Clean it out again,” Alan said.
“Boys. We’ll draw straws.” I heard Bill’s voice say.
The softly muttered damn floated on the night breeze. And the voice didn’t belong to Alan; it belonged to the other deputy. He’d won the privilege of hauling the manure-covered Charles to the county jail.
“Hey,” Bill’s voice called out, “be sure and hose him down before you book him. I don’t want the jail stinking.”
“Yeah,” Alan’s voice joined in. “You might want to drive back to town with the windows down.”
The other deputy muttered while he stuffed Charles in the back of his patrol car.
“Okay, let’s go through this again,” Comacho said, pulling his hand through his hair.
“Henry, I’d watch that if I were you,” Bill said as he walked by.
Comacho turned and gave Bill a puzzled look. “What do you mean?”
“Pulling your hand through your hair. It’s a real easy habit to develop when you’re around Ophelia too much.” Bill pulled his hat off and pointed to his head. “How do you think I went bald?”
I rolled my eyes. Bill was all fun and games, now that I’d caught his killer for him.
Comacho took a deep breath and lifted his hand to his head again. Realizing what he was about to do, he shook his head slightly and dropped his hand. “Okay. Where were we?”
I groaned. “About to go over what happened for the millionth time.”
“All right, we’ll drop it for now.” He looked at me sternly. “But I want to talk to you tomorrow.”
“After we get Abby home,” I said, crossing my arms and planting my feet.
Comacho looked surprised. “The doctors are releasing her tomorrow?”
“Yes. Except for some weakness in her hand, everything’s normal. They wanted to observe her for twenty-four hours, just in case.”
“Wow, that’s amazing. Especially for a woman her age.”
I laughed. “You’d better not let her hear you say that.”
“What?”
I laughed again. “Never mind. Are you finished with your questions?”
“Yes.” Comacho turned on his heel and started to walk away.
“Wait a second,” I said, grabbing his sleeve. “It’s my turn now.”
“Okay,” he said with a shrug. “I figure I owe you that much. What do you want to know?”
“You haven’t told me how or why you and Bill came rushing out here. Did you find my clues?”
“You mean the doodle of the witches’ hat and the cat?”
“And ‘PPI’ written upside down. I had to write it upside down in case Charles was watching me,” I said proudly. “I thought writing upside down was clever. Wait a second,” I said fisting my hand on my hip. “The doodle w
asn’t a cat, it was a weasel. Get it, Weasely Beasley? You told me it was Beasley’s nickname.”
“Guess I missed that one,” he said grinning.
“What about leaving the book open to the Salem Witch Trials, did you get that one?”
His grin widened. “Nope, missed that one, too.”
I must be as oblique as the runes.
I frowned. “Why did you drive out here?”
“Ahh,” he said turning his head to look around. “Ahh, I got a call after we left the motel. The police caught the Harvester in Indiana.”
“No kidding? How did they catch him?”
“Ahh, it’s kind of hard to explain,” he said, glancing over his shoulder and back to me.
I winked at him. “Try.”
“Okay,” he said, giving up. “After you told me about the barn you saw in the…whatever you call them—”
“Vision,” I said, supplying the word for him.
“Yeah, one of those. I called a colleague in Indiana, where most of the bodies have been found. Asked him if any of the suspects they’d looked at had a place with a barn. He said one did, but he had an alibi. I suggested they dig deeper. He followed my advice and learned the alibi had lied.” He lifted a shoulder. “Once they had that information, they were able to tie up other loose ends and convince a judge to give them a search warrant. They went out to the barn and found enough evidence to hang the guy.”
I suspected he was leaving a lot of information out, but I let it pass.
“Catching the Harvester still doesn’t explain why you came out here,” I said, not willing to let him off the hook.
Comacho squirmed and took a deep breath. “All right. After I found out you were right about the Harvester, I thought, ‘Okay, maybe if she was right about the Harvester, maybe she was right about some other stuff.’”
“In other words, you decided to believe me about Beasley?” I crossed my arms on my chest.
“I didn’t say that,” he quickly denied. “But I thought maybe I should talk to you again. I drove by the library, all the lights were on, it was unlocked, and your car was there.” He hesitated. “But you weren’t.”
“And you found my doodles and figured out where Charles had taken me.” I nodded, my head satisfied.
“No, Alan saw you in the car with Charles headed this way.”
“I didn’t see Alan.”
“You weren’t supposed to. He was back off the road with his radar on.”
“He was running a speed trap?” I said, pouting. I was disappointed my clues hadn’t led them here.
“We prefer not to call them that,” he said in a serious tone. “I called Bill to tell him what I’d found and he put it out on the radio. Alan heard, called back in what he’d seen, and here we are. Any more questions?”
“How did Charles kill Beasley?”
“Poison. Medical examiner found it during the autopsy. We don’t know for sure yet, but we think Thornton slipped some antifreeze in Beasley’s coffee. Waited for him to die, brought the body out here, and dumped him.”
“And Beasley didn’t taste the poison, because of all the sugar,” I said to myself.
“What did you say?” Comacho asked.
“Beasley used a lot of sugar in his coffee. I noticed it that day in the hospital cafeteria.”
“Oh yeah, the day you threatened him,” Comacho said, nodding.
“Please, I’d rather not talk about the argument,” I replied, putting a hand on my hip.
“I’m sure you don’t want to talk about it,” he said and chuckled. “A word of advice, Ophelia—don’t threaten people. You can get in trouble doing that.”
No kidding. Hey, did he call me Ophelia?
I narrowed my eyes and watched him.
He lifted an eyebrow. “You have more questions?”
Other questions. Hmm, should I ask him how he got the nickname Ki-Kay ? Nope, better not.
“Yes,” I said, snapping my fingers. “Not really a question, but would you check on something for me?”
“Maybe. Depends on what it is,” he answered, his voice full of suspicion.
“A body, skeleton, was found in Massachusetts. The sheriff thinks it belongs to a woman who disappeared fifteen years ago. Would you check if the woman had any connection with Charles’s family?”
“I suppose. You have her name?”
“No, but I can get it and call you.”
Comacho rubbed his chin thinking. “Why do you want to know?”
“I think Charles killed her.”
“Why?”
“He came after me because he thought I’d caused that student’s convulsion. His mother suffered from convulsions. He told me she was bewitched and killed through witchcraft. The woman in Massachusetts was killed by pressing—piling on rocks till the person dies. Pressing was used during the Salem Witch Trials and I thought, maybe…” I stopped and lifted a hand. “It’s just a hunch.”
“A hunch or a hunch?” Comacho cocked his head and watched me.
“A hunch. Does that mean you believe I’m psychic?” I asked, surprised.
He cleared his throat and stared at the stars. “I don’t know. I’ve seen some strange stuff in the last few days.”
“Henry, you do believe I’m psychic.” And for some reason, it made me happy.
“Put it this way,” he said, smiling, “I’m willing to consider the possibility.”
I grinned at him. “Do you believe I’m a witch too, Henry?”
“Don’t press your luck, Jensen,” he said with a glare.
Later that night, I dreamed of Brian again, but not as a twisted corpse lying in a Dumpster.
In my dream it was spring. The trees were covered with buds, and all the flowerbeds around the college were full of tender green shoots forcing their way up, seeking the spring sun.
I saw Brian striding across the campus, his arms full of graded papers. Reaching the steps of one of the buildings, he raced up them two at a time. At the door, he turned and saw me. His face broke into a big grin. Balancing the papers in one arm, he raised his other arm in a big wave. His lips moved, but I was too far away to hear them. With a final smile, he opened the door and disappeared inside.
In my dream I stood for a long time, gazing at the building. I may have been too far away to hear Brian’s words, but I read his lips.
His final words were “Thank you.”
Thirty-Five
The next afternoon while Mother and I sprang Abby from the hospital, Arthur and Darci waited for us at Abby’s. Pulling up to the house, Abby saw the banner. WELCOME HOME, ABBY! hung across the porch railing and green and yellow streamers flapped in the light breeze. Arthur and Darci, proud of their handiwork, stood at the end of the walk.
A shy look crossed Arthur’s face as he opened the door and helped Abby out. I saw a similar look on Abby’s. Hmm, Abby and Arthur? Septuagenarian romance? Don’t even go there, Jensen, I thought and slammed the lid of the trunk shut.
The inside of the house had been decorated in a similar manner. Streamers, draped in long swags, ran down the length of the hallway. In the dining room, another WELCOME HOME banner had been pinned to Abby’s lace curtains. The table held candles and a cake.
At the corner of the table, Edna Walters waited with her hands resting on top of her walker. When Abby entered the room, she hobbled over to her.
“Edna, the cake’s lovely,” Abby said in a pleasant voice.
Edna preened at the praise. “Least I could do, after all you’ve done for me and mine over the years,” she said, her false teeth clicking. Edna slid a glance at my mother and smiled.
Now that I knew the whole story about Harley and his ex-wife, I was relieved Edna harbored no resentment toward my mother.
After we had settled, Abby in her chair in the living room, the neighbors began to arrive, each one bringing food for Abby. Casseroles, covered dishes, pies, more cakes, soon the kitchen counter was littered with offerings from her friends and neighbors.
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Abby wouldn’t need to cook for a month.
No one stayed long, but each friend and neighbor wanted to pay their respect to Abby. Standing in the doorway, I watched proudly while she held court. If someday I could be half the woman she was, I would consider my life well spent.
An arm slipped around my waist and I glanced at my mother standing next to me. Her face wore the same expression of pride as mine.
“She’s really special, isn’t she?” my mother asked with a nod toward Abby.
“Yes, she is,” I said, leaning against her. “And so are you.”
A look of surprise crossed her face. “Me?” she asked as she placed a hand on her chest. “I don’t have the talent you and Mother have.”
“No, but you have talents of your own. You kept the doctors in line, you watched over Abby while I was…” I trailed off, trying to think of the right word to describe what had happened to me the last few days.
“Busy?” Mother said, supplying the word for me.
I grinned. “Yeah, while I was busy.” I cocked my head and looked at her. “Good job, Mom.”
“Why, thank you,” she said, standing tall.
A knock at the door drew our attention. Darci opened the door to Bill, Alan, and Henry Comacho. The three men followed her down the hall, past Mother and me, and into the living room, each man giving us a nod of acknowledgment as they went by.
Comacho looked tired. He wore the same jeans and shirt from last night and had dark circles under his eyes. Had he spent the entire night questioning Charles?
Bill and Alan moved straight to Abby while Comacho hung back. Abby noticed Comacho and reached out to draw him closer.
Clasping her hand, Comacho bent low till his head was even with Abby’s. She whispered something in his ear.
I was too far away to hear the words, but whatever they were, Comacho found them amusing. He threw back his head and laughed as Abby smiled up at him. Moving away from Abby, he walked up to me.
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