'Sorry. Didn't mean to startle you. I've had some trouble so I've had to be careful checking who was at my door.'
'I heard... '
Lori broke the awkward silence, 'I've got good news. The union is filling charges against Shermon and Kawalski. Our lawyer, Sandra, thinks the State might even file criminal charges of blackmail against them... '
'That's good news but I'm not sure if that will help me much. I think I'm out of teaching. The district will never hire me back. With Jenny dead, I'll always have an open record of an investigation of having sex with a minor. The new background-check laws mean that no school will hire me.'
'Jenny's dead? What happened?'
'You heard about the body found in Deer Lake Falls?'
'Yes.'
'That was Jenny. It was pretty bad, and her being seventeen and all, they aren't releasing her name. I found out because Hakanen talked to me.'
'Who's Hakanen?'
'Oh, Henry is the deputy sheriff handling Jenny's complaint against
me.'
'They don't think you did it, do they?' For some reason, the thought that anyone would suspect James of murder bothered Lori more than Jenny's death. At the time, Lori dismissed her thoughts, because Jenny was a bitchy girl who always had a snide comment. But later that night, Lori would spend hours wondering if her dismissal of Jenny's death and her worry for James meant more.
'No. Henry stopped by to warn me.' James hesitated. He didn't want to alarm Lori. 'He thought when the reporters found out about her murder, they might track me down.' His own explanation sounded lame to him but he realized the Lori was still in shock about hearing of Jenny's murder. He dropped his explanation with a pause.
'Thanks for telling me about the suits against Shermon and Kawalski.
But you'd better leave now. Those kids that attacked me might come by or maybe that preacher might hear about you being here by somebody driving by.' James had walked up to her and was trying to lead her back to her car. He was having trouble leading her away. She smelled good. He hadn't remembered how good a woman can smell to a man. He had forgotten until now how, when he had been courting his ex-wife in college, he would bury his face in her hair to catch her fresh clean scent beneath the smell of her perfume. As he walked her to her car, he kept stumbling. Somehow the hand he was using to guide her to her car kept interfering with his walking.
Lori pulled away. 'No. I don't care if they know I came here!'
'But I care.'
The sadness in that statement stopped her. Before she recovered, she was in her car and he was walking away, his shoulders slumped. Lori drove away. She made it back to her apartment despite the tears that she couldn't understand clouding her eyes.
* * * *
The killer snuck into the school's bus garage and stole a sledgehammer from in back. He was going to kill Jenny's pimp. The sledge was for any of the pimp's friends, if they were around.
The killer found Pike skulking in the back corner of the school parking lot waiting for the baseball team to finish practicing. Pike alertly scanned the parking lot for any cops. With both Arne and John still in jail, he was worried about being caught selling his little bits of _joy_ to the baseball team. Pike saw the killer approach but dismissed him as a _nobody_ just crossing the lot. As the killer continued to approach, Pike's thoughts changed to a new customer.
When the killer came closer, Pike heard the soft whisper, 'I sure do miss talking to those young high school girls.'
Pike's thoughts immediately turned to big money. Here was definitely any easy mark! He leaned close to offer a crude reply. Suddenly, something exploded in his midsection. As he gasped for air, sparks erupted between his eyes and then blackness.
The throbbing woke Pike slowly. He tried to move his hand to his throbbing head but nothing happened. As the agony in his head slowly retreated, new pains seeped in, shoulders ... elbows ... wrists ... groin ... knees. Slowly he realized he had to be dangling spread eagle, suspended by his ankles and wrists. He tried to open his eyes. They were crusted shut. He turned and twisted against his bonds trying to rub the crust from his eyes.
The pain increased, nearly bringing back the blackness.
Finally, his left eye was open. He saw blackness. A dull red glow came from the left. He turned dazed. It took him minutes before he associated the red glow with heat he now started to feel. An electric space heater! Cold, clammy everywhere else ... A basement? _Wait a minute! I'm naked!_
Pike slowly drifted in and out of consciousness for minutes, hours or days. His mind only registered the pain and the hot red glow. Insanity and terror slowly crept in.
He woke to the unbearable glare of a single light bulb suspended from the floor joists overhead. He heard a noise. Turning his head, he saw a scrawny old man he vaguely remembered from when there was light. The old man had placed a metal bucket on the concrete floor of the basement. It must have been the noise that awoke him. The old man had placed a bar of soap and a towel on a chair near the bucket and was removing his clothes. The old man looked at him. He smiled. His mouth moved and from a distance Pike heard, 'Don't want to get my clothes dirty.'
Pike watched as the scrawny old man turned away and walked to a workbench at the far wall. As he followed the scrawny man's steps, he saw the stairs and the faint glow from the ceiling where a doorway to the outside must be. Pike watched the glow. He forgot the old man until he heard, 'We don't want you to bleed to death. No sir, we'z don't.'
Pike jerked his head in pain to look at the old man who spoke those words. His vision blacked out for a moment. When it cleared, he saw the naked old man still smiling. In his hands was a small propane torch. Its flame was being played across the blade of a kitchen knife. The blade slowly turned a cherry red. Pike opened his mouth to scream but nothing came out. He felt a searing pain between his legs. As darkness descended, he finally heard a noise. He knew he was screaming for his mouth was open but the noise he had heard was a girlish giggle from the old man.
An incessant humming woke Pike up. It seemed to take him forever to place the song. It was the theme from the _Brady Bunch_! He smelled burnt meat. Why was he at a barbecue? _'I must be drunk,'_ he thought. He opened his eye and watched the naked old man washing something dark off his body into a bucket. He remembered! He opened his mouth to scream but all that came out was a small croak.
The old man turned. 'Awake. Your throat must be dry. Here.' The old man brought a sodden corner of the towel he was using to Pike's mouth. A squeeze and foul tasting fluid dribbled in.
'Why?' softly cracked from Pike's mouth.
The old man gave him the same sickly smile he had before. As the old man dressed, Pike's eye caught a flash of light off the old man's shirt. His eye focused on the flashing object. A uniform shirt ... embroidery ... letters ... What does it say? B ... I ... L ... Oh, my God!
The old man still had a smile on his face. 'I see you finally recognize me. Well, I'll have to talk to you more later. I have to get this in the refrigerator upstairs and get to work.' The old man held up a small plastic wrapped bundle. 'You know a person would think these would be bigger, being how proud you were about fucking so many girls.' Giggling, he reached up and pulled the chain on the light bulb hanging from the joists.
Pike watched the old man's shadow as he turned and walked up the stairs. The door closed. All Pike had left was the dull red glow of the heater and a throat so badly used that it could scream no more. Unconsciousness came as he tried to understand what the old man had done to him.
* * * *
_The light turns on. Again the hands reach for the deck of cards._
This time the card has a yellow orb with a face on it. A winding road twists under the orb. The road travels from a pond with a crayfish between two howling, frightened dogs and two gray towers to the dark distant hills.
_The hands hesitate, seemingly not wanting to extinguish the only light in the room. Finally, a_ *click* _and darkness._
