by Bob Moats
He looked a bit puzzled and asked, “Why were you in Miss Wickens’ room?”
We both smiled, and Trapper just said “Oh, aww…all right, let that go. So where was our hero Buck while the killer was bashing you with the door?” He looked over to Buck.
I looked over to Buck, too, wondering the same thing.
He grinned and said, “I went out for a breath of fresh air and was talking to the cops out front. I had just come back in and saw Tim and Deacon on the floor. I went to the bedroom to check on you guys. That’s when I ran into the nut job.”
“Why didn’t you have your gun out?” I asked.
“I was concerned over not shooting you or Penny, so I waited till I assessed the situation. By that time he was standing in front of me. I had no time to draw, I just jumped at him. I hate men in ski masks.” He grinned.
“George, why did you have a gun?” Trapper asked.
“I’m licensed to carry concealed, for protection from the criminal element.”
“Whatever. Just keep it concealed from me. The officers who ran out the back said the killer was escaping in a boat. That’s how he got here unseen. We were watching the road and front. He knows the layout here.” He turned to Penny. “Have you had anyone in the house recently that could get a look at the place?”
Penny thought and said, “There was a man came out two weeks ago to give me an estimate on carpeting. He drew out a floor plan with measurements. He was the only person to be in the house in a long time. I never did get the estimate. I just figured they weren’t interested in doing the job, and then I forgot about it.”
“I’ll need the name of that carpet store,” he told her. She said she would write it down and went to get the address.
Trapper looked at the giants and said, “Richards explained your part in this. I’m going to assume you men did your jobs the best you could under the circumstances. You two will still be assigned to protection. Just stay on your best.” The giants smiled and nodded.
“Miss Wickens, I’m still having a hard time locating Linda Grolich. After this I think the killer may wait to get back to you till this all settles. He will probably try for Grolich now. I just hope he has as much trouble finding her as I am.”
“Well, Sergeant, if it helps, I talked to Linda about a year ago. We ran into each other in a restaurant, and after talking a while she told me about a cabin she has up in Lakeport. She said she goes there every so often to get away from people,” Penny related.
“Oh, man, that helps. I’ll do some checking with the sheriffs who patrol Lakeport and see what they can track down.” He looked at Penny again. “I really think we should put you in a safe house till this is over.”
Penny paused. “I understand your concern, but with this crack team of protectors I have here, I’d rather stay in my home. I can take some time off from my show. Phil, the station’s weatherman, can do a decent job of filling in for me. He has in the past. But not great enough that he would replace me.” She had a cute little smile, an evil smile, but cute.
“Well, that’s up to you. I’ll leave things the way they are for now. That may throw off the killer figuring we would change things. I’m going to call Lakeport to see if I can find Grolich and alert the sheriffs about the situation.”
He told the outside officers to wait for a relief team and asked the giants if they needed relief. They both said they were fine with staying. Trapper said that was fine with him and went out.
We all just sat there, not knowing what to say and too tired to say anything. Penny slipped down on the armchair with me making me flinch from the ribs. She apologized and started to get up, but I pulled her back down. We snuggled.
“You’ll need to get that window in the kitchen boarded up and the front door jamb fixed. Oh, and there’s a bullet hole in your bedroom ceiling,” I said to her.
She smiled. “I’ll leave the bullet hole to remind me of your gallant attempt to protect me.”
Buck offered, “I need to go home for a bit to get a few things. I’ll measure the window and get a sheet of plywood for it at Home Depot and some wood for the door. I’ll bring it all back, then we can have a construction party. I saw a barbecue out back. Seems like a shame not to use it.” The walrus smile came out.
Penny got up, took some money out of her purse, and gave it to Buck. “Get the wood and some nice steaks with this. Big juicy steaks.”
Buck said, “Yes, ma’am, as you wish. I’m at your command.” He got up, swayed a bit, steadied himself, then left. The giants got up and said they needed fresh air so went out with the other two officers to wait for their relief.
Penny and I were finally alone in the house. It felt good. She tightened her hug on me.
“Jim, I really like having you around. For more than just sex.” She grinned and kissed me on the cheek. “Although that’s a good reason. I was really in a bad way over you back in high school. You were my first serious crush, the kind you don’t get over easily. I was so jealous of the way you used to talk about Sara in the lunchroom. You probably don’t remember, but I used to hang around with the small circle of friends you had.”
“I do remember. I used to hang with the underclassmen, my class was so annoying. You were a doll even back then, so I do remember. I thought cheerleaders were only accessible to the jocks, and that one jock, Jeff Lyons, seemed to be always around you. I even fantasized about you occasionally. It was hard not to notice you, especially in your short cheerleader skirt. You honestly had the best legs of all the cheerleaders,” I confessed.
She looked at me for a moment then said, “We’ve got some catching up to do. I’ll have to buy a new cheerleader outfit, and you can bring your camera.”
“Hmm…interesting thought. I like it!” We made out like teenagers for a while.
*
Chapter Nine
After a half hour we came up for air. Since we were getting a little hot and heavy, we stopped so not to embarrass anyone walking in and finding us possibly rolling naked on the rug.
Besides, I wanted to have a talk with Penny about the Rocco incident. It could lead to finding out who was doing all that. I really didn’t want to change the mood, but I needed to know.
“Penny, I have to ask you about something that I really don’t want to hear about, involving you.” She looked at me with a puzzled expression. I continued, “It’s about Rocco and the charges that were made about inappropriate behavior toward the cheerleaders.”
Penny stiffened, then got up. She didn’t say anything for a moment, just walked over and sat on a stool at the snack counter. “I’ve always tried to push that whole thing out of my mind. Dee and I were so against it, but Sue and Marge kept at us for days until we broke down and gave in. Linda and Joyce were mean girls, anyway, so they thought it was all just fun.” She went quiet for a bit as though trying to think. “Sue didn’t like Mr. Rocco, she didn’t like the way he would always treat Mrs. Stone, our gym teacher. He was always pawing at her in their office when he thought no one was looking, but Sue saw them a couple of times.”
I got up and went to the stool next to her. “I always thought Mrs. Stone was a bit on the lesbian side even though she was married.”
“Her husband was a teacher at another school in the district. No, she may have been a bit butch looking, but not a lesbian. Definitely not. Mr. Rocco was a mean, ornery person towards the students. He treated the football team as if they were idiots. In gym he would torment the slow kids and the overweight ones, pushing them excessively hard. He sent many a boy out crying. He was not well liked by just about everyone. I guess I justified what we did as punishment for him being such a rotten person.”
She looked at me and had such a sad expression. “I never realized that we could ruin his career and his life. He left the school, and we were told not to talk about it by the school administration. Linda told us later that he had gotten mean with her in the locker room before he left, that he threatened all of us. She was scared, but he didn’t har
m her, just the threat.”
“What was Mrs. Stone’s reaction? Did she know you girls made up the charges?”
“Oh, God, no. We never talked to her about it, and she never brought it up. It was so weird, like it never happened. But Mrs. Stone was never quite the same after that. She became moody and sullen. She wasn’t even happy when we found out she was pregnant a couple of months later. Her husband would stop by about twice a week to see if she was all right. At least he was happy.”
We both were silent for a while. I was deducing things in my head, which didn’t do much.
Penny took a big breath and continued, “Mrs. Stone worked up to the last month of her pregnancy and then just disappeared. She never came back after her son was born. We wanted to visit her, but she told us to stay away. As for Mr. Rocco, Sue told us she heard one of the teachers in the office saying that he heard Rocco was in jail in Lansing for drunk, disorderly and assault. He was working as a janitor in some factory, and he came in drunk to work one day. He had a fight with his boss. They called the cops and took him away, but not before he broke a pop bottle over his boss’s head causing a severe concussion. He went into a coma. Rocco was sent to jail for a year. God, did we push him to that?”
“Hey, he had the meanness in him. It would have only been a matter of time before he might have hurt someone at school. You can’t blame yourself for his actions.” I tried to comfort her, she was still looking so sad.
“You really think so? I’ve had nightmares about screwing up some man’s life and what he would end up like. It’s been my shame for years.”
“I remember Rocco from my gym class. He kept calling me four-eyed Richards because of my glasses. It was annoying, and after way too many insults I wanted to pound on him for it. But he was the teacher and bigger than me, and I was a wimp back then.” I smiled, and the corners of her mouth turned up a little. “OK, we need to assess this situation and figure out who and why someone is killing off the cheerleaders. The connection has to be Rocco unless you remember someone else who hated the cheerleaders.”
She grinned and said, “Yeah, all the homely girls in school.”
We laughed and then went quiet.
“You really think this has to do with Rocco? Why would he wait till now to attack us?” She looked sad again.
“Well, he can’t attack you. He died last December,” I said.
She looked surprised. “If it’s not him, then who?”
“I did some checking. He has a daughter in Chicago. She’s a criminal lawyer, and I’m wondering if this is some death bed promise for revenge on the girls he believed brought him down.” I saw the look in her eyes. It was self-blame this time. “Penny, get it out of your head that what you did caused his miserable life. He was destined to it.”
She stared off into the distance. I snapped my fingers in front of her face and said, “I need to use your computer. May I?”
She finally got a smile, and said, “Sweetie, you don’t have to ask. It’s now community property.”
“Wow, what happened to the pre-nup?” I joked.
“Hell with it. I trust you.” She kissed me, then got up and went to the computer desk across the family room and turned on the computer. She turned to me and looking deeply into my eyes for a long beat of our hearts. “And I love you. Silly woman that I am, but I do.”
I got up from my stool, went to her put my arm around her and whispered in her ear, “I do love you, too, and I won’t let your past harm you in any way. I promise that with my heart.” While we waited for the computer to boot up and while we clung to each other, I thought about love. It could latch on to us fast when we least expected it, you know like ‘love at first sight.’ Penny and I had known each other for over forty years and yet didn’t. This one day we spent together, talking about our lives and loves and what we did and didn’t have, brought me closer to her than if we had seen each other every day for years. I didn’t take love for granted, had been hurt by it too many times. This time it felt real, like in our souls. Soul mates, if that’s what it was. I knew it to be so.
The computer was beeping, so I went to the desk chair and sat. I brought up a browser and typed “Julia Waters” into Google. Penny watched over my shoulder and asked who she was. I told her. She asked if I knew anything about her. I said she was born years after Rocco left our school. He must have had some good times in his life. And from my call to her law firm, the last time she was in Michigan was for her father’s funeral last December.
The search brought up the usual million hits. I flipped through the pages, stopping at anything related to her. Penny brought a dining room chair over and sat beside me. I took her hand whenever I paused to read something.
I knew she was hurting over bad memories, and reading about someone attached to those memories didn’t help. I finally found an article written recently in a Chicago newspaper that went into more detail about her life in Michigan.
“Here we go, a little more info about her.” I read the story then looked at Penny. “She had a very miserable childhood growing up with her father. Her mother ran off when she was twelve because her father beat on her mother so bad that she ended up hospitalized numerous times. Her mother wouldn’t press charges, so the police always turned him loose. Julia wanted to escape from it all but wouldn’t leave her mother. After her mother finally left one day and disappeared, Julia ran away from her father’s home numerous times but was always brought back. When she finally reached legal age, she left. She lived with a cousin back in Lansing and went to Michigan State for a law degree. She worked two jobs and was still able to complete her courses. She very rarely visited her father after he moved to Bad Axe, Michigan. When she graduated, she moved to Chicago to work for a small law firm there. After a few years she made a name for herself and moved up to the prestigious law firm of Bander, Witt and Grey.”
“At least she made something of herself,” commented Penny.
“Yeah, she started working with abused women about five years ago and has been praised for fighting against abusive spouses. It says ‘spouses’ because she stressed that men can also be victims of bad relationships. I know how that is. I lived with an abusive woman for two years. I got far away from her when I finally had enough of it.” I looked at her and grinned. “You’re not abusive are you?”
“Shut up and keep reading or I’ll smack you upside your head.” She looked serious, and then her mouth cracked a tiny smile. I kissed it.
“It does mention that she came back to Michigan for her father’s funeral. She admits that she wasn’t fond of her father, a polite way to say she hated him, but respected him for the good years he gave her. She said he wasn’t always bad, just had problems from an incident that happened to him years ago that left him bitter about life.”
Penny took a breath and said, “He didn’t forget. I am so ashamed of all us for what we did.”
“You guys were just teenagers. You weren’t supposed to be smart. At least you realize what you did was wrong, and you just have to get over it. Nothing you can do about it now.” I hoped she didn’t beat herself up over this. I wished it never had happened, that someone was out on a vendetta, possibly over this.
“I really should write her or call or something to apologize for it.” Her eyes were welling up. I reached for a tissue box on the computer desk and gave her a tissue.
“Something to think about for later, but for now we have to keep you alive to be able to apologize.” I pushed back from the desk and thought a bit. “We need to stop him before he gets to you and Linda. We have to play detectives and solve this mystery.”
“You haven’t done much of this detecting, have you?”
“I take offense to that, ma’am. I have read just about all the good crime, detective and P.I. novels written, so I feel I’m qualified to investigate this case,” I said whole heartedly, but with a grin.
The stress was making her giddy. I think she finally snapped. “Does that make me your moll? Am I a floozy in a t
ight dress, just swooning over your masculine wiles? Tell me Mike Hammer, can you save me?”
Boy, could she put on a show. I hadn’t heard talk like that since late night, black and white TV crime shows, the kind you can tell were filmed on a cheap set in some small studio.
“Listen, doll, I ain’t gonna tell you again. Don’t talk unless I tell you to while I’m scrutinizing this case.”
She laughed aloud, sounding better than she had for the last half hour.
I took the adult position. “OK, back to reality. Remind me today to make some calls to track down Julia Waters’ whereabouts for the last week. I was told she was in California, but is that what she wanted people to believe? California is three hours behind us, so I’ll call this afternoon.”
It was almost 8 A.M., and Penny said she had to call the studio to explain her absence. She got up and went into the kitchen to use the phone. I stared at the computer screen which still had the article about Julia Waters on it. It had a picture of her, not very beautiful, kind of a plain, ordinary looking woman.
