Valerie S. Malmont

by Snow;Mistletoe Death

  “The gun—where did it come from? And the duct tape?”

  “The gun's my pa's—he don't lock them up. I took the tape from Corny's—just in case.”

  “Did you know Peter was going to hurt me?” I asked.

  “I thought maybe he might. Didn't want him to hurt nobody else.”

  “Thanks, Pearl,” I said, hugging her.

  She wrapped her skinny arms around my neck and laid her head on my shoulder, and we stayed that way until we heard the distant wail of an ambulance siren.

  Directly below us, water danced and sparkled in a small brook. “By the edge of running water,” Praxythea had said. Once again she'd made a lucky guess.

  CHAPTER 10

  O come ye, O come ye

  IT WASN'T LONG BEFORE SEVERAL EMERGENCY Medical Technicians and a state trooper arrived on the scene. With the help of the stranger I'd found on the road, the EMTs placed Kevin on a stretcher board and raised him out of the furnace. While they were fastening the straps to secure him, one said, “We gotta take him way over to Hagerstown Hospital, since the Lickin Creek clinic done closed down.” The accusing look he gave me indicated he blamed me for the disastrous chain of events at the apple festival a few months ago.

  I wanted to tell him it wasn't my fault, but I let it go.

  Before they left, one man checked my bruises. “You'll be fine,” he said with an unconcerned shrug. “Put some ice on when you get home.”

  The trooper, in the meantime, was listening to Pearl's story. When she was done, the officer came over to me, removed his Smokey the Bear hat, and fanned himself with it. “It's hard to believe a kid could do something like this,” he said.

  I thought of the many known serial killers who had started their careers as children, graduating from torturing animals to torturing people. Whether he knew it or not, Peter was following in their infamous footsteps.

  “I just hope he can get some good psychiatric care,” I said.

  “I'll drop the little girl off at her house on the way into town,” the policeman said.

  Pearl let out a wail. “No! I ain't gonna ride with Peter! No way!”

  He took off his hat again and scratched his head. “Can you take her home?”

  I nodded, and put a sheltering arm around Pearl's thin shoulders.

  “Tell her parents to come down to the state police barracks on Scalp Level Road. We'll need a statement from you, too.”

  “I can stop and tell the Poffenbergers Kevin's been found, if you want me to.”

  He looked doubtful, but then seemed to realize there was no other way to handle this situation. “Okay,” he agreed, somewhat reluctantly.

  I really didn't want to be the bearer of bad tidings, but neither did I want Pearl to have to ride in the patrol car with her brother. When I left with Pearl, the trooper was stripping the duct-tape bindings off Peter, who was screaming. Agony or anger? I couldn't tell.

  Pearl wisely chose to stay in the truck while I went inside the trailer to tell Kevin's parents that he had been found. I could swear Kevin's father looked almost disappointed when he learned his son was safe. There would be no more media trucks in his yard, and most likely no TV movie. The mother, though, responded with a flood of tears and a gush of thanks.

  As I started back to my truck, a voice behind me called out, “Miss! Wait up, miss!”

  I paused in the small, tire-strewn yard and turned to face Kevin's mother. “Yes?”

  Her shoulders drooped, and she looked as if she wanted to run away, but then she straightened up and said, “Thank you, miss. For saving my boy.”

  “I'm glad everything turned out all right.”

  “He coulda died.”

  “He'll be up and around before you know it.”

  “God must have something in mind for him to do with his life,” she said.

  I remained silent as I wondered what life held for any of her brood.

  Almost as if she could read my mind, she said, “I know what you think of my husband. I done seen it in your face—the first time you'uns done come up here to our double-wide asking questions.”

  She continued her one-sided conversation. “You're right about him, you know. He ain't held a job in years. And when he gets drunk he hurts the kids and me. What do you think I oughta do, miss?”

  I broke my silence. “I'd ask myself what was best for my kids, then I'd do it.” Even as I said it, I knew it wasn't that easy.

  “I don't know how I'd take care of them all by myself. I'm near thirty, you know, and I ain't never had a job.”

  Near thirty! I'd assumed she was much older than I. “Don't you have family? Someplace you could go until you can get on your feet?”

  “I got a sister lives in West Virginia,” she said thoughtfully. She turned and walked slowly back to her trailer. I wished there was something I could do to help her.

  As I swung the truck around, preparing to leave, I saw the parents preparing to leave for the hospital by packing their kids into the back of an ancient pickup truck. I shuddered and headed toward Pearl's house.

  Pearl clung to my hand for support, but she was strong when she told her parents exactly what Peter had done. Her parents were stunned—disbelieving—and angry. Angry with me for bringing them the bad news, with Pearl for not having stopped Peter, with his teacher for not having recognized his aberrant behavior, and with the community for not providing young people with enough to do. They appeared to accept no responsibility at all for what their child had become.

  When they finally calmed down, they agreed to follow me to the barracks. The truck they drove was as old and disreputable as the one Kevin's family had left in.

  The state police barracks was on Scalp Level Road, about half a mile outside the borough limits. It was a low, modern building of brick and glass, surrounded by barren fields. I'd been there before, wearing my reporter's hat, so I knew when summer came it would be nearly hidden among the cornstalks.

  My legs shook as I got out of the truck. I was exhausted from the shocking events of the day: finding Kevin, the pounding I'd taken from the barrage of rocks, and the emotional meetings with both sets of Pof-fenberger parents.

  A trooper whom I'd met a few times while covering stories there escorted Pearl and her parents into an interrogation room. While the door was open, I got a quick glimpse of Peter, who was behind a Formica-covered table. Across from him sat another trooper and an attorney I recognized from the public defender's office.

  In another room, I was questioned by two troopers, one male and one female, for nearly twenty minutes. After I'd described what had happened several times, the female officer asked, “Surely you must have some idea why Peter lured you there? Did you do anything to antagonize him?”

  I shook my head, mystified. “I've only spoken to him two times. And I didn't even accuse him of anything, even though I sensed he wasn't telling me the whole truth. I gave him my card and asked him to call me if he thought of anything that might help us find Kevin. I thought he knew more than he was telling and might open up if he could get away from Pearl's influence. That's why I wasn't totally surprised to hear from him this morning.”

  While I spoke, the policeman who'd been in the interrogation room with Peter entered, sank into a chair, and sighed wearily. “I hate it when kids commit crimes. I want to believe people are basically good and learn to be criminals from others. But then I run into someone like Peter who seems to have been born bad. He not only admitted what he did, but told us how much he enjoyed doing it. The kid's a monster!”

  “Did he say why he wanted to hurt me?” I asked.

  He smiled wryly. “If it makes you feel better, Tori, it was nothing personal. He'd gotten warmed up killing Kevin—at least he thought he had—and found it a lot more exciting than torturing the neighbors’ pets. He wanted to repeat the thrill. He figured it would be easy to get you to believe he was going to lead you to Kevin. He was looking for another victim, and you were available.”

  I pondered this
for a minute. I'd always thought of myself as a wary person; that was how I'd survived for ten years in New York. But Peter was just a boy. It had never occurred to me I'd have anything to fear from a child.

  “No wonder he was so secretive,” I said. “I thought he was hiding from Pearl, but now I see he was avoiding being seen with me, so later nobody would connect him with my … disappearance.” I shuddered to think what would have happened if Pearl hadn't followed us and rescued me.

  “What will the court do to him?” I asked.

  “Most likely, he'll be sent to a juvenile facility, where he'll get some counseling. It might help, but I doubt it. More likely, he'll come out at eighteen a full-fledged, hardened criminal.”

  With that gloomy statement, our meeting was concluded. As I walked into the waiting room, I saw the Poffenbergers, sitting apart from each other on wooden benches. I crossed over to Pearl and hugged her. “Thanks again, honey,” I said.

  She allowed herself a small smile. “They said I wouldn't get into no trouble since I helped you. But I guess Peter will.”

  “He'll be all right, I'm sure,” I said.

  Again, I wished I felt as optimistic about his chances for recovery as I tried to sound.

  The late-afternoon sky was pewter-gray when I finally pulled into the circular drive in front of my house. I was exhausted, bruised, dirty, and emotionally drained. All I could think about was unwinding with a hot bath and an ice-cold Scotch and water.

  As soon as I opened the back door, I knew something was wrong. The cats sat on the kitchen table, fur rumpled, golden eyes wide and indignant. Even Icky had edged forward an inch or two in his terrarium. For him that was practically aerobic exercise.

  “What's wrong?” Even as I spoke, I began to notice that my piles of books, catalogs, magazines, notes I'd written to myself, letters, and all the rest of the clutter that seems to accumulate wherever I am, looked messier than usual.

  Someone had been in my house, searching through my stuff. Not Praxythea. I was sure of that. If she'd touched anything of mine it would have been to straighten it up, not throw it around like this.

  Oh, no, I thought, what if they've stolen some of Ethe-lind's antiques! In a panic, I ran down the hall into the front parlor. The drawers of the antique walnut desk had been pulled out, upended, and tossed to the floor, but the valuable things, like the Staffordshire dogs on the mantel, the engraved silver boxes, and the Waterford crystal vases full of silk flowers were still in their places.

  Upstairs, next to my bedroom, in the small room that I'd planned to use for a study back in the days when I thought I'd actually have time to work on my book, even more havoc had been wrought. My two-drawer, cardboard filing cabinet had been ripped apart, and my manuscripts lay scattered on the Oriental carpet.

  The cats walked over and sniffed at the mess.

  “Fine watchcats you are,” I scolded. “If you can't do better than this, I'll have to take down my ATTACK CAT sign.”

  What on earth had anyone expected to find in here? I wondered as I stared at the mess. My secondhand laptop computer was the only semivaluable article I owned, and it was still on the desk where I'd left it.

  I remembered Luscious telling me about a break-in at a nearby home. Teenagers, he'd suspected. I wondered if the same ones were responsible for this vandalism.

  It took a while to check the entire house, but I could not see that anything had been stolen. Thankfully, none of Ethelind's antiques had been touched.

  When I tried to call Luscious to tell him what had happened, the girl who answered the phone at Hoopen-gartner's told me he was “down to the state police barracks.” I figured Luscious had enough to worry about without my adding something else to his list. Since nothing was missing, I told the girl not to bother paging him.

  My filthy clothes were lying on the bedroom floor, and hot water was running into the claw-footed tub, when I heard a voice from downstairs call out, “Yoo-hoo, it's me, are you ready to go?”

  A glance at the Seth Thomas clock on the wall told me it was five-thirty. I'd forgotten all about Ginnie and our bingo date!

  I wrapped my terry-cloth robe around me and ran down the stairs. She wouldn't listen to any of my reasons for not going to bingo with her.

  “You need to get out,” she insisted. “You mustn't allow a home invasion to change your plans. That's what they want. You've got to show them you're not afraid. If you hurry, we'll only miss the early-bird games.”

  “Okay,” I said reluctantly, “I'll go.” I limped upstairs, drained the steaming tub, and took a quick and unsatisfactory shower, wishing all the time that I could learn how to say no like I meant it.

  CHAPTER 11

  See the blazing Yule before us

  WHILE DRIVING TO THE WEST END LICKIN Creek Volunteer Fire Department, where the bingo game was to be held, Ginnie asked dozens of questions about my finding Kevin. Skipping over Peter's involvement, I told her I'd done it with Pearl's help. The notorious Lickin Creek Grapevine would spread the rest of the story soon enough.

  Ginnie pulled her Subaru into the parking lot, where it looked out of place among the pickup trucks and SUVs. Just outside the entrance to the social hall, a dozen smokers, coat collars turned up against the cold, huddled in a small circle. Ginnie charged right into their midst and excitedly broke the news of Kevin's rescue. I was pounded on the back and swept through the door in a tobacco-scented cloud of congratulations.

  My hand was shaken, my back thumped, and my body hugged by zillions of faceless people. We finally managed to break away from the throng and find two empty folding chairs, which Ginnie claimed by tipping them up against the side of the long table.

  She slipped off her coat, revealing a T-shirt that said OUT OF MY WAY—I'M LATE FOR BINGO.

  “Cute,” I said.

  “I can order one for you. Mine always brings me luck.”

  “Thanks anyway.”

  She shrugged. “Let's buy our cards and get some dinner.”

  We purchased bingo cards, three to a sheet, for the first game. Two sheets for me and four for Ginnie, then stood in line at the food counter.

  Ginnie ordered the slippery potpie from a woman wearing a Santa Claus hat and Christmas-ball earrings. I chose French fries and an ox-roast sandwich that looked like barbecue to me. On Ginnie's recommendation I also selected a slice of Montgomery pie, which she assured me was “as near as you can get to heaven without dying.”

  While our food was being slapped together, I admired the holiday decor: an aluminum Christmas tree in one corner, paper garlands thumbtacked to the dropped ceiling, and red paper tablecloths on the long tables. We carried our food on orange plastic trays and claimed our seats.

  When I tried to eat my sandwich, the flimsy plastic fork I'd been given snapped in two, and shreds of barbecued ox dribbled down the front of my sweater. I wiped up what I could with a paper napkin and tackled the pie, which was sweet and lemony and really very good.

  Ginnie placed two grinning plastic dolls with purple hair on the table in front of us. “Good-luck trolls,” she said.

  The caller took his place on the platform at the front of the hall. “First game—fill the card. You'uns is playing for this here gathering basket.”

  I looked questioningly at Ginnie, who'd just taken the colored markers from our bingo kits. “Gathering basket? What kind of bingo is this?”

  “Basket bingo,” she answered happily.

  I stared down at my cards. Baskets—with my luck I'd probably win one.

  “First number is B-15,” the caller shouted into his microphone. “Repeat, B-15.” Above his head, B-15 lit up on a big wall chart.

  Ginnie dabbed green spots on a couple of her cards and uttered a satisfied sigh.

  Neither of us won the first few games. Ginnie purchased four more sheets of cards. I cut back to one. An evening of this could get expensive!

  We used the time between games to get to know each other better. Ginnie shared with me several funny stories
about her adventures as a substitute teacher at the high school, and I told her a few wild tales about my days as an investigative reporter.

  We moved on to our reasons for living in Lickin Creek. She knew about Garnet, of course, everybody in town did. But she didn't know that I'd first visited Lickin Creek nearly ten years ago—to be in Alice-Ann's wedding.

  “First time I saw Lickin Creek was five years ago,” Ginnie said. “My husband was at the Pentagon, and we'd taken a week's vacation to visit Pennsylvania. We stayed in Gettysburg and made some side trips, and one day we drove across a mountain and stumbled onto this town. We both found it charming and on an impulse stopped into a realtor's office to see what houses cost here.

  “Turned out the prices of homes here were about a fifth what they were in the D.C. area. I saw a picture of the house we eventually bought—it was the kind of place I'd dreamed about during all the years we'd lived on one Army post after another—a real home. We went to see it. It needed tons of work. We thought about it for a month, then made an offer. We worked on it every weekend for three years, getting it ready for the day Lem retired.”

  I knew there was no Lem in the picture now. She answered my unspoken question. “He had a heart attack at his retirement party. I moved into our dream home alone.”

  She didn't give me time to murmur sympathies. “Great,” she said, “they've got a pantry basket coming up. With an eight-way divider! I've just got to win it.”

  She didn't, but it didn't seem to bother her. After purchasing another stack of cards, she came back to the table as full of enthusiasm as ever. “I just love bingo!” she said with a contented smile. “Guess it's the feeling that I'm getting something for nothing.”

  I mentally totaled up what she'd spent on cards. So far she'd got nothing for a whole lot of something—money.

  She rubbed her troll's fuzzy head, “for luck.” Its purple nylon hair was about the same shade as Oretta's pageant costume. I mentioned that to Ginnie.