He passed me the bag and withdrew a sheet of paper, which appeared to be a photocopy of a handwritten letter. He leaned against the side of the car and everyone gathered around him as he held it up for everyone to see.
“This was delivered to the editor-in-chief of the Austin American Statesman this morning demanding that they print it on the front page of tomorrow’s newspaper.” Claudia gave me a significant look. I knew what she was thinking, of course. Zodiac. “The editor in chief used good sense in turning the original and its envelope over to us immediately. I’m going to read it to you now.”
Taking a deep breath, he began to read:
“To Whom This May Concern:
Of the Coming, do not ask the reason for the season.
I am, was, and will always be here.
Look. You will find me within.
There is no Allah. No Great Spirit or Yahweh.
There is only LEGION.
We hunger for your children.
Each will be extinguished like a Wicke.
You have prepared their Graves.
ALLAHU AKBAR.”
“And it was signed simply with the name, ‘Gabriel.’”
Claudia and I glanced at each other significantly. The horn. The archangel.
Finally, it was Claudia who broke the silence, “So? He thinks he’s the Zodiac. What does this have to do with us?”
“The letter was mostly handwritten in block letters with a few words of newsprint glued here and there with no apparent pattern,” he continued, “Except two words.”
He handed the photocopy to Mom and the rest of us looked over her shoulder, while he pointed the portion in question.
“The first is the last word of the last sentence of body of the letter, which reads, ‘You have prepared their Graves.’ Not only is the word Graves capitalized, but enough of the newspaper page was cut that it reveals a page number in the lower right hand corner. The word and the number exactly matches the name taken from an article from the October 15th Austin American Statesman. This article was titled, ‘Investigators Grasping at Straws’ in reaction to Sadie Nayar’s body being found.”
“Among other things this article talks about my cooperation in the investigation. The killer, in using this particular clipping, is announcing that he knows that I’m involved. Of course, this has been common knowledge for weeks.”
Claudia gently pulled the letter closer, squinted at the copy, then took a step away from the group.
Looking up at Claudia in concern, Dad said, “The last word of the second to the last sentence is also capitalized and purposely misspelled.”
Mrs. Wicke gasped and drew a quivering hand to her lips.
“We’re not sure which source the name was drawn from, but where it came from is not as important as the fact that it’s in this letter at all.”
“What does this mean, Jack?” Mrs. Wicke asked almost breathlessly.
“He’s announcing that he knows who we are,” Claudia answered.
Mrs. Wicke looked from her daughter to Dad. He nodded to her.
“How..?” Mrs. Wicke began, then her eyes glazed over and she began to fold a little, before Mom and Dad grabbed her between them.
I watched Claudia’s eyes slowly glaze over. She stared off into space and hummed, doing those mental calculations that made her blind and deaf to the world around her. “He either knows us or has been following us,” she finally said.
Mrs. Wicke stared at Claudia with a sort of shocked awe. “Well, we can’t go back. We can’t go back to Haven.”
Mom and Dad looked at each other. There was some non-verbal communication going on there that years of marriage had honed.
“Dad, what about Uncle Hank?”
“I’ve already let him know where we were going.”
I waited for a few moments and when he offered nothing further: “Dad? Is he coming?”
“You know your Uncle, Paul,” Dad answered through gritted teeth. “He said he didn’t want to abandon his flock.”
“His f-flock?” I stammered. “We’re his family!”
“Paul, when are you going to learn that the Church is your Uncle’s family,” Dad snapped. “Not us.”
“It’s Thursday and the weekly shipment is coming into Comeaux’s.”
Claudia looked at me with surprise and gave a snort of derisive laughter. The glare I shot her sobered her up quick.
“Don’t worry about that, Paul,” Dad responded. “I’ll give Bill a call.”
Claudia snuck a look at me. Again her face crumbled into amusement.
“I don’t know what could be so damn funny,” I snapped, starting away from her toward the cabin. “We all just got a collective death threat and you’re tickled pink.”
She shook her head. “It’s all so absurd, isn’t it? You just have to laugh.”
The other three pairs of eyes trained themselves on her. Not one of us seemed capable of wringing the least bit of humor from the situation.
We did our best to get the place cleaned up, but in the end, we just had to tolerate the situation. At least for tonight, this was our home and we had to find a way to deal with it.
I think the first question on everyone’s mind was what we were going to do for food. It was at that point that Dad revealed the three boxes of pizza and two coolers in his truck; one containing drinks (three six packs of soda, one six pack of beer, and a bottle of both red and white wine), and the other containing eggs and bacon and O.J. for breakfast tomorrow. (I had to believe that Mom was lurking somewhere behind these preparations.)
We all sat down together on the table set out in the back screened-in patio area overlooking the lake and Mrs. Wicke led us in a brief blessing thanking God for our health and asking for continued protection.
After she’d concluded, I heard myself murmur just loud enough to hear: “Deliver us from evil.” Everyone gave an “amen,” and Dad gave me an extra look of interest.
Dad ended up opening the white wine, because Mom muttered something about how red was supposed to be served at room temperature. (I caught Claudia smirking again, but she was able to keep her laughter to herself this time.) He poured Mom and Mrs. Wicke both a plastic cupful and opened a beer for himself. I held my plastic cup out to him, and he gave me a brief look of appraisal before pouring half a cup of wine.
“Hey, what is this? The boy gets alcohol but the girl doesn’t! This is sexism, y’know!”
Dad gave Mrs. Wicke a single questioning lift of his brows.
Mrs. Wicke sighed and gave in. “Fine, Claudia. Half a cup.” She nodded to Dad.
Dad picked up the bottle of wine, and Claudia started to hold her cup out but stopped short. “I’d rather have a beer actually.”
That one took Mrs. Wicke a little by surprise. Dad smirked and again looked to her. She simply shrugged. “If it’s okay with the former Sheriff, it’s okay with me.”
“I’ll allow you one beer in exchange for a night in county lockup to be named in the future,” Dad said with a straight face.
Claudia dug one out of the cooler and cracked it open with a smug look in my direction. We all watched and waited for the face as she took her first sip but her expression never changed.
Mrs. Wicke gave her a stern look of understanding after everyone else had turned their attention back to the pizza. Her expression softened and cocked her head at her daughter.
“Your father never drank wine either.”
Mom put a hand to her mouth to conceal the smile that erupted around her mouthful of pizza. “He could put them away, too.”
Mrs. Wicke and Mom shared a laugh so similar you’d have thought they were sisters. Dad just ignored them.
“What, he get wasted a lot?” Claudia asked with a chuckle.
Mrs. Wicke considered. “I wouldn’t say a lot.”
“Did he get mean when he was drunk?” Claudia then asked, trying to look casual though the enthusiasm of her words had already given her away.
“No, never.” Mrs.
Wicke started to take another bite then said instead, “Once, I thought he was going to seriously hurt this other guy at a party, but I don’t think it had anything to do with how much he had to drink.”
“What happened?” I asked.
“One of his co-workers down at the body shop, Yorbie Johnson, accused him of setting himself up to be a hero,” Mrs. Wicke answered. “Said that he, Jack, and Hank must have had something to do with that kidnapping to know exactly where to find that girl.” She settled back in her chair, contemplating the wine glass in her hand. “He told Yorbie that he didn’t care what he said about him but that he should take back what he said about Jack and Hank. Yorbie just laughed at him. The next thing I knew, Ronnie was standing over Yorbie, who was lying on the floor holding his nose. Two of his friends were holding him back but if I hadn’t got in there between them, I think your father might have spent the weekend in jail.”
Everyone looked a little shocked, except Claudia. She had the wide-eyed look of someone who had just sampled a particularly interesting flavor they’d never tried before. She leaned slightly forward with a look of satisfaction and nodded for her mother to continue.
“I’ve never seen him like that before or after,” Mrs. Wicke explained to her daughter. “Your father wore a mask of toughness to hide his sensitivity, but he wasn’t a violent man.”
“I remember hearing about that from Dennis and Jimmy,” Dad offered.
“Was he friends with Uncle Hank, Dad?”
“No more than passing acquaintances at school as far as I know.”
“Then why would he have done that,” Claudia asked, “for a stranger?”
“We weren’t strangers. We just weren’t friends.”
Everyone just waited for some sort of explanation, but instead, Dad finished his beer and stood up. “I’m going to take a walk around outside.”
I threw my chair back and started after him. “I want to come.”
“No, you stay here.” He stopped just short of saying “with the women,” but it was a near miss.
For not having a television or anything other than the textbooks in my backpack, I figured we were in for a very long night. Turns out, there was life before cable television and computers.
Dad brought out a deck of cards from the truck and we played Texas Hold-Em until after ten o’clock that night. Though, I’m sure there were more important things for the lead investigator of an on-going serial murder case to be doing than playing cards, my father just wanted to be with his family. He needed to be.
Mom and Dad took one bedroom. Mrs. Wicke and Claudia, the other. Which left me on the couch again.
Of course, I slept fitfully, waking up every time I heard a strange noise, which was generally, every few minutes when you’re in an unfamiliar place. Around two or so I got up to use the restroom, which was a glorified Porta-Potty behind the house, basically a seat, a bucket, and a curtain. I chose just to walk a few steps further out into the woods and relieve myself the old-fashioned way.
The snap of a stick cut off my flow like the switch of a light.
I started to call out then hesitated. I wasn’t being paranoid. After that letter, I had real solid reasons to be scared. I zipped up and started back toward the cabin in a round-about direction, hoping that in the darkness I might confuse whoever might be out there.
The moon was out and it cast a silvery glow over the still surface of the lake. I waited there for a several minutes listening for more movement. There was none.
The still unbroken surface of the lake was indescribably beautiful, like fluorescent blue paint on a dark canvass. At some point, I found myself thinking of Claudia. If anything ever happened to her, I thought… The ache I had felt for her the night I’d slept over at the Wicke’s house returned and my knees began to tremble, not from fear but from something stronger.
Confident that I had imagined the earlier sound, I started back around the side of the house toward the door which I’d used to get out earlier. It was completely shrouded in darkness from the shade of the cabin, and I couldn’t see my hand in front of my face. This was why I managed to run full-face into someone coming the other way.
We both gasped and threw out our hands. I fell back on my ass, and I heard the other let out a honking burst of laughter.
Claudia.
“Here, reach up to me,” the disembodied voice floated down to me.
I reached up. Her hands closed around mine. I grasped them and yanked her down with me. She buried the squeal between tightened lips and fell atop me.
That was all it took.
It had been a day, a week, a month of more pressures and anxiety than two people our age could normally be expected to cope with and something was bound to give. The building steam had to have an outlet.
We struggled there in the darkness. Our lips first burning against cold flesh that slowly warmed to each other’s touch. I found the nape of her neck, the space beneath her ear, the prickly hair at the base of her neck. Our kisses turned more fevered like the starving finding food at last. We fumbled beneath each other’s loose clothes and before I knew what was happening, it was over.
She retreated, buttoned, and disappeared. If I hadn’t seen her emerge out of the shadows and into the moonlight, I would have thought it all a mercilessly painful dream.
But she had been there. I still felt her heat dissipating. I could still taste the saltiness of her skin. I could smell her on my clothes.
I rose to my feet, guiltily and started back the way I’d come.
Oh God, what was I doing, here, just yards away from everyone that matters in my life.
Maybe she matters more, I thought.
Paul.
I froze there in the shadows, throwing my back up against the side of the cabin with a thump. I remained in that position for what must have been five of the longest minutes of my life. I heard no other sounds beside crickets and an owl somewhere in the distance. It had been as distinct a voice as the ones I’d heard before, but this time there was urgency, like a beckoning.
Finally, I just forced my legs moving again and returned to the cabin and the couch. I lay there for a few minutes listening for movement in another part of the cabin but she had already returned to bed. There were no raised voices. No accusations.
My heartbeat returned to normal, I let my guard down, and I collapsed into unconsciousness like a prizefighter to the mat.
Chapter 23 (Friday, October 23rd)
Certain I must be dreaming, I awoke to the sound of laughter and the smell of eggs and bacon.
Mom and Dad sat together out on the covered patio with a propane-powered stove, cooking breakfast. Both smiled and teased each other as if this were some sort of vacation privilege for which they had paid thousands of dollars.
I sat at the table unannounced and watched them in half-awake awe as they playfully got in each other’s way. When I’d finally had about all I could take, I strategically scraped the legs of my chair.
They looked around in surprise. “Morning, Paul,” Mom said. “How did you sleep?”
“I’d prefer to be at home in my own bed,” I grumbled. “What’s the plan for today?”
“As soon as we get the all-clear from the Rangers, we’ll go pick up some things at home and go to the hotel,” Dad responded.
“Which hotel?”
Dad gave me a patronizing look.
I yawned. “Let me guess, you don’t know.”
“But hey, you always have the option of staying here.” He gave Mom a wink and bumped her with his hip. “Personally, I’m all for sticking around.”
Mom exchanged sour expressions with me. “I think my son and I are on the same page on this one. There’s no substitute for a hot shower and a toilet that flushes, right Paul?”
I felt my face heat up with the association of my late night excursion. I avoided eye-contact and chose instead to stare around at the lake. “Exactly,” I answered, although I found a bit of sadness in my voice that I hadn’t int
ended. She glanced over at me, her “mother-sense” tingling, but refrained from commenting.
Mrs. Wicke and Claudia awoke around fifteen minutes later and joined me at the table--Mrs. Wicke in one of Mom’s old nightgowns and Claudia in my old baggy extra-large Dallas Cowboys sweater that someone (possibly one of the officers) had packed from my room. I glanced at her briefly, but she avoided all eye contact this morning. Couldn’t say I blame her. She hadn’t bothered to brush her hair and looked like one of the Addams Family’s distant cousins.
As unattractive as she may have thought she looked, my heart was racing just because of her proximity. I could see every curve, no matter how muted, beneath the baggy sweater. Consciously, I tried to ignore her presence, but found it difficult.
When Mom held her hands out in an invitation to say grace, Dad set a tray of bacon down in the center of the table, gave her a tolerant look, and finally grasped me and Mom’s hands from his standing position over his place at the crowded table.
“Bless us oh Lord and this food,” Mom began.
I glanced up and watched Claudia open her eyes and stare openly at me while everyone else’s heads were bowed. I tried to read that enigmatic expression, but finally gave up and mouthed the word “What?” She simply lowered her eyes again, giving me no reaction.
“Watch over and protect our family from evil. Please guide the authorities to the right man and please stop…” The words escaped her and her lips began to quiver.
Dad squeezed her hand and announced that the prayer of blessing was over with an emphatic “Amen.” He leaned down, pecked Mom on the forehead before taking his seat.
“Well, I have to say, despite all the revelations I experienced yesterday, I slept like a log,” Mrs. Wicke told everyone.
“Maybe because of all that,” Mom replied, passing out plates and utensils.
“Psychological tension has a way of taking a physical toll on the human body,” Dad added, coming around with the cast-iron skillet and distributing the scrambled eggs. “The human being can act very uncharacteristically under great stress.”
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