I found her in the backyard standing in the shadows of the doorway leading into the garage. She was wearing the black cloak she had worn to the cemetery over her nightgown. I tried to look casual as I gazed at the clothes she slept in. She pulled the cloak just a bit tighter and just stared at me expectantly.
“I just looked through my Dad’s files.”
She rushed forward and gave me an excited slap on the arm. “Y’see, I knew there was a reason I kept you around. There’s been a third victim, hasn’t there?” she asked starting past me into the yard in her bare feet.
“How did you know that?”
“Web.” She leaped up and sat on the edge of the old trampoline that was left there by the last owners. Mrs. Wicke had wanted to keep it despite the fact that Claudia insisted that she was too old to “jump around like an acrobat on acid.”
“Claudia, no one outside of the Broward County Sheriff’s Department has this information. You have to swear to me…”
She tucked her legs beneath her in excitement and crossed her breast. “Hope to die a slow and torturous death! Let’s hear it.”
My stern look was wasted on her. “There’s been a third victim all right. They found his body between Ulee’s Junction and Haven in a cow pasture on Highway 158.”
She considered what she’d just heard, her eyes glazing over a bit. “Wow, that’s close.” Then, “A guy?” she murmured with furrowed brow. “Was he strangled?”
I gave Claudia a hard look and swallowed awkwardly. “His head was removed.”
Claudia actually paled. A tiny sound of confusion escaped her throat. Finally, she said, “If this is the same guy, he’s getting more intimate with the bodies.”
“Have you ever heard the phrase Allahu Akbar?”
She made a sound of concern in the back of her throat.
“Those words were written in block letters, all caps with a Sharpie on the top edge of the tub sitting out in the middle of a cow pasture.”
“He’s getting bolder.”
“Also, the death card from a Tarot deck was found arranged in the collar of the victim’s body.”
Claudia let herself fall back, her legs dangle. I didn’t know what to make of this body language, but it felt like frustration to me.
“Allahu Akbar,” she murmured to herself. “It’s Muslim. Means ‘God is great,’ or something like that. It’s used during Islamic prayer, but a lot of extremists have been using it before committing an act of terrorism. That would also fit the style of the killing. Beheading is a ritual in Sharia law, shared by both peace-loving Muslims and the crazies.”
“There was also something highlighted in the typed material about a cut matching the style of an animal being slaughtered. The cut appeared to have been made in the front with a small knife and not a straight cut from behind which is the usual humane method.”
“He must have been drained of blood like an animal,” she remarked.
“Now I wish I had glanced at those photos.”
“He had the pictures! Dammit! I need to see those!”
I shushed her, glancing back at the house. “Are you kidding me? It’s bad enough what I did. I feel like a criminal or something.”
“Catholic guilt is your area of expertise, not mine.” With the conspiratorial tone of a priest reading the text of an ancient prophecy, she muttered: “The victim was placed in a cattle pasture, to remind us of an animal slaughtered.”
I glanced at Claudia to check her state of mind, the memory of her condition arising in my mind for the first time since I’d arrived. She seemed a little more bewildered than I was used to, but otherwise fine.
“The other two bodies were found in a ditch and a dumpster,” she calculated aloud. “It seemed haphazard before. He was more deliberate this time.”
My eye had fallen to her dangling bare feet. I could see dewy blades of grass sticking to the bright white skin beneath. I had a sudden overwhelming urge to touch them.
“Paul, this is the method that terrorists use to kill infidels. Allau Akbar is a battle cry for extremists. But the tarot card? What does that have to do with anything?” She ran a head through her hair in irritation.
“I thought that would be obvious,” I said. “After all, it’s Death.”
She gave me a wide-eyed look. “No, Paul, the Death card does not mean the end of life, in fact it more often refers to a transformation of some sort, a change.”
I looked into the darkness surrounding us, the bright moonlight reflecting off the roof and the tops of the trees in their yard.
“None of this is making any sense.”
“Claudia, maybe we should just think about all this in the morning after a good night’s sleep.”
“We won’t be able to talk about this at lunch tomorrow.” She gave me a side-long glance. “I got detention for cutting school today.”
“You cut school? Why?”
“Just felt like sleeping.” For a moment, she looked profoundly sad. “By the way, I found out Sadie Nayar is not Egyptian. Her parents are from Delhi. Her father works as a programmer in Austin.”
Suddenly a light went on in one of the windows upstairs, and I bolted like a roach at the flick of a switch. I could hear Claudia’s barely contained snorts of laughter behind me as I dashed up the sidewalk and onto Ash Avenue.
When I got home, there was a single message on my computer screen: “Our secret is safe. See you tomorrow!”
Chapter 17 (Friday, October 16th)
I didn’t see Claudia once all day because of her detention. I ate lunch in the band hall again, Martin and I rehearsing our music for the Homecoming game that night in one of the practice rooms.
The game started at seven o’clock and by the end of the first half we were already down by two touchdowns. The halftime show went fairly smooth. Our lines were straight and Brent Jacobs’ cornet solo went off okay, though I’d heard him do better.
As Sonny, Greg, and I mounted the bleachers to drop off our instruments, Bridgette Sullivan broke off from two other girls and rushed to catch up. She had both arms wrapped around her mid-section. “Can I borrow your jacket? I left mine in the band hall.”
Suddenly, Sonny and Greg weren’t walking with me anymore. When I glanced back, they had already joined several other band members headed down the steps without a single look back. Bridgette didn’t even seem to notice.
And just like that, I was alone with Bridgette Sullivan.
“Well, yeah. Sure thing,” I responded, feeling a little disoriented.
“I’ll give it back once I get mine. I promise.”
I handed her the jacket. She threw it around her shoulders and started down the bleachers. I once again caught myself staring at the legs below the bottom edge of the jacket. Snapping to my senses, I fell into step beside her. We started together around the bleachers toward the band hall. Somehow, it had been assumed that I would be accompanying her there.
Mr. Woods was pretty strict about us going back to the band hall, because there had been some vandalism last month. I think half of the reason Bridgette wanted me along was so that if she got caught, she would have the benefit of an accomplice with a high honor rating.
I was trying desperately to think of something intelligent to say.
“So, two trees now, huh?”
For one frightening moment, I had no idea what she was talking about. It was like she was speaking in tongues.
“The girl from San Marcos. The second tree.” Oblivious to the morbid subject matter, she still gave me a shy smile, and suddenly, I realized that she had more going for her than just her legs.
“Oh yeah.” I’d forgotten all about what I’d said that night a week ago. Oddly enough, she hadn’t. The truth was the two trees she had spoken about had an additional one for company, and I came very close to blurting it out, only catching myself at the last second. The forest was indeed growing now, but I couldn’t tell her what I shouldn’t have known.
“So now what’s your opinion of a
ll this, Mr. Graves?”
“Well… you probably don’t want to hear what I really think,” I replied.
“Of course, I do,” she answered, giving me a look of interest. “Do you think it’s a serial killer?”
And away we went, beyond the stadium arc lights and into the darkness.
I was quiet for a few moments while I gathered my thoughts. I knew more than ninety-nine percent of the folks at the game that night, but I couldn’t tell the girl walking beside me.
“I think people are overreacting a little.”
“Oh.” The sound was one of disappointment. Then she perked up and gave me a playful look. “Are you just saying that because you don’t want to scare me?”
I gave her a look and a smile. “Everyone’s got a theory. I’ve been listening to as many as I can and reserving judgment. So, tell me what you think.”
“Oh, you don’t want to hear my theory,” she answered coyly.
“Of course I do.”
“Well first, we’ve got these two murders, then there was the school shooting, six men buried alive in a mine and now a bridge collapse.”
She came to a stop in front of the door to the band hall and swung around in a dramatic fashion to face me.
“I think it’s the end of the world with a capital ‘E.’”
Then she yanked the door open and disappeared into the darkness inside.
For a moment, I was too stunned to move, then she peeked her head outside.
“It’s safe, Graves. Serial killer free.”
She grabbed her coat from inside and handed my own back to me with another shy smile. We started back to the bleachers.
“I guess we really shouldn’t be worried about such things as serial killers,” she said. “After all, there’s really very little we can do about it, except get more worried.”
This seemed like a very odd concept to me, having been raised by a man of action, but I held my tongue. It was an actual conversation, and I didn’t want to do anything to divert the flow.
“I’ve been doing a lot of research into Buddhism. You know anything about it?” she gave me a significant look.
“No, not much,” I admitted.
“Funny, something about you seems very Zen-like,” she gave me another one of those looks that made me a little uneasy, but in a good way. “It’s all about freeing oneself from worldly concerns, y’know. I’m still working on that part, but I’ve adopted a strictly vegetarian diet and actually never felt better. Then there’s the meditation.” She glanced over at me, catching a troubled expression on my face. “Sorry, I guess you caught me running at the mouth, huh?”
“I thought your family was Baptist,” I heard myself saying.
“My parents have always been a little narrow-minded when it comes to anything outside of Haven, Texas. It’s not like I’m converting or anything. I just find some of the Buddhists’ beliefs interesting.” She tittered, grabbed my arm, and whispered conspiratorially into my ear. “Please don’t narc on me, Paul. This is just between you and me.”
Luckily, we got back to the bleachers before the whole band was back, but that didn’t stop the rumor mill. Before I had even taken my seat, Sonny and Greg were already hovering.
“We just went to get her coat in the hall. What do you think we did?”
“With a stick in the mud like you, Graves,” Brent Jacobs perked up from the row in front of us, “Nothing.” Next to him, Nathan Graham cleared his spit valve with a knowing smirk on his face.
For the rest of the game, I couldn’t help thinking about that thing she had said about the end of the world. The way she had said it, though, was disturbingly matter-of-fact. Despite that, the statement struck a chord with me.
Collapse.
That word kept coming up again and again.
Bridge collapse. Mine collapse. And if I’m not mistaken, when asked why the school shooting had been allowed to go for two hours, one of the first comments made by the Jasper ISD spokesperson was that there had been “an obvious collapse in security protocol.” My first instinct was that the comment was doublespeak for “we screwed up Big Time,” or to put it more succinctly, as we say here in the backwoods of Texas, the spokesman was “full of shit.”
When the game was over and Sonny, Greg and I started back to the band hall, we could already hear Marc Connor testing out the sound system for the Homecoming dance in the cafeteria.
I had brought along some clothes to change into, but I had just done it out of spite to get back at Claudia. Now that the prospect of actually staying and going through all the drama of standing around watching other people dance hardly seemed worth it.
“You going?” Sonny asked me.
“Well, I’m grounded, so…”
“Grounded?” Bridgette appeared behind me. I glanced around and saw that she looked just as amazing in casual clothes as she did in a twirler uniform. I tried not to let my eyes linger too long on the denim skirt she was wearing.
Sonny, who never let anything like polite etiquette get in the way of a cheap thrill, openly stared.
“Yeah, I kinda got grounded for staying out too late last Saturday.”
“You, Graves?” she asked with a playful smirk. “But I thought you were squeaky clean?”
“Who? Me?”
Sonny gave a groan and disappeared.
Bridgette slipped a bit closer. “So, what happened?”
Hmm, how would the truth sound coming out of my mouth?
“Me and Claudia Wicke rode bicycles to the cemetery to conjure up the spirit of her deceased father.”
I figured I’d try a different angle. “I was playing ball with the boys and it went kinda late.” At what point did the phrase “the boys” enter my lexicon?
Bridgette managed to look disappointed yet somehow satisfied with the answer.
“That’s too bad. I was hoping to show you a few dance moves.”
Really? The word just popped into my head. Luckily, I kept my lips pressed together and denied the thought access to the outside world. Unfortunately, when I did open my mouth again this is what emerged:
“Let me see what I can do.”
Bridgette gave me a playful slap on the arm. “Yeah, never hurts to ask, right? I’ll be around.” Then she joined a few of her friends. They giggled and glanced back at me and did all the annoying things that teenage girls do in packs.
Since I no longer had access to a car, I hadn’t driven to the game that evening.
I found my mother’s car and crept as nonchalantly as possible into the passenger’s side. No sense in announcing to the rest of the band that I was a big loser whose mother picked him up after games. She started the car.
“I didn’t see you at the game.”
“I got there late and had to find parking. I’d forgotten that it was Homecoming.”
It was then that she noticed the music coming from the cafeteria.
“What’s going on tonight? Is that a dance?” Her voice had gained an annoying frequency with her excitement.
Nuts.
“Yeah, something like that.”
“Don’t you want to go?”
“Nah, not so much.”
Then she cut the engine.
“Paul Andrew, that’s a pretty negative attitude. I think you should go.”
I stared out the passenger window.
“It could be fun,” she offered.
“Can I take my car?”
She gave a smirk and started the car.
“I think we can arrange some sort of deal without your Dad’s approval.”
We started toward home.
“Where’s Dad?”
Her lips formed a tight angry line. “Working.”
It was quarter to ten. No wonder she was angry.
“He may be saving lives, y’know.”
Mom didn’t respond.
I got home and changed into my good jeans and a clean shirt. When I came downstairs, Mom had her yarn bag out and was knitting and watchi
ng Leno.
“Are you knitting again?” It had been years since I’d seen the needles.
“Figured I should pick up a hobby again, now that I have all this free time on my hands.” She made no effort to hide the resentment in her voice.
“Are you sure, I shouldn’t wait with you for Dad to get home?”
“He just called from the road and said he’d be home in a half hour,” she answered. “Don’t worry about the old lady. You go have fun.”
My mother looked exceptionally sad as she sat there in the glow of the television, the sewing needles casting long stark shadows over her face. In that moment, I could see a vision of a possible future. Maybe it was all the talk of death lately, but if anything ever happened to my father, I was afraid this is how my mother might spend the majority of her nights. The knowledge of that sucked the life right out of me.
I gave her a fierce hug, and she turned a curious look on me.
“Now let’s get this straight. This get out of jail free card has an expiration time on it,” she instructed me. “Twelve midnight and I want your phone on you at all times. Got me?”
I nodded. “Look, I’m not staying there very long. I mean, it’s a school dance for God’s sake.”
“You never know. You might just lose track of the time.”
I jumped into my car before Mom could change her mind. I started it up and just sat there behind the wheel. It had only been one full day since I’d driven myself, but it was still too long. And before that, since I could only drive my car to work and school, it had been almost a week since I’d driven it out of the simple pleasure of driving, and I hadn’t realized how much I’d missed the freedom of it.
As I pulled out onto Cedar Street and started toward the school with my radio cranked up to the classic rock station out of Austin, I asked myself if I really wanted to go to the dance. You can go anywhere you want, I told myself. You can drive out of Haven for a few hours and never look back. Just drive, drive, drive until you run out of gas, then you can fill up and start all over again.
There was this whole Bridgette thing to contend with. If I didn’t know any better, I’d have thought she’d somehow taken an interest in me. C’mon, I told myself. Her? She’s one of the popular kids, right? Why me? I mean, sure, it was flattering and she certainly had nice legs and all, but did I really want to hang out with her, I asked myself?
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