stop!'
James locked his eyes on Kawalski. Slowly he said, 'Do ... you ... understand?' He waited until Kawalski finally nodded his head.
* * * *
Al Gallea saw Makinen drive up to the school. Only minutes later, he saw him walk out and drive away. Curious, he entered the building himself. Hearing a commotion coming from the principal's office, he entered. Kawalski was leaning against a desk, holding his stomach.
When he saw Gallea, he said, 'You've got to arrest that crazy Makinen. He attacked me.'
Looking at the others in the room, Al saw a teacher shake his head 'no.' 'What happened?'
'Kawalski attacked Makinen.' The others nodded their heads 'yes.'
Kawalski hissed, 'You Son-of-a-Bitch, I'll -- '
'You'll what?' interrupted Gallea. Al had never intimidated anyone before but Kawalski was completely whipped. He mumbled something and left for his office. Al talked to the ones remaining.
Al immediately left the school. Going to the nearest minit mart, he called the sheriff's station, asking for Henry. He did not want anyone with a scanner to hear what he was going to say. When Henry got on the line, Al blurted out, 'You were right. Makinen is one tough son of a bitch. He just walked into the school and asked Shermon and Kawalski who killed Jenny and Pike. I think those two know something. His questions really shook them up. Kawalski even tried to attack Makinen. Makinen put him down without even trying!
'School is letting out now. I think you should come here with Frank. I think that if we put a little pressure on them now, they will tell us something. We will need to keep them apart so they won't know what the other is saying.'
The busses and most of the faculty had left when Al got back to the school. There was already a deputy at the front of the building so he drove around in back. Al parked where he could see the other deputy's car and waited for Henry and Frank. He saw a flash of movement at a back entrance. It would start and stop. Curious, he walked to the back door. It was a steel utility door with only a narrow window. Seeing nothing, Al opened the door. He stood just inside the doorway waiting for his eyes to adjust to the sudden darkness. A flash and a pull across his stomach. He was on the floor! How had he gotten there? He was having trouble seeing. Finally, out of the shadows, he made out the figure of an old man leaning on something. At first he thought it was a broom. He wondered why the broom handle had a curve in it? He forced his eyes to focus. It wasn't a broom. It was a scythe, with a blade burnished white, except for a dark stain dripping from the shinny edge.
* * * *
Kawalski was tired, confused, and angry. The police showed up after school in force. The old deputy sheriff, Hakanen, questioned him. During the first few minutes, the questioning was simple stuff, but every time he opened his mouth, the old deputy would follow up with another question. He soon realized that he was telling the deputy everything. Kawalski had just decided to ask for his lawyer when another deputy hurried into his office. The next question surprised him. 'Where is the other deputy?' After the blank look he gave the cops, they added, 'The deputy that talked to you after Makinen left.' The looks the cops gave him crumbled all of his resolve. He was scared of them, jail and Makinen. He had always pushed others around. Now everything was different, no one was afraid of him, but what hurt him even worse was the obvious disdainful disgust they showed him. Before the penetrating eyes of the old deputy, Kawalski confessed everything. He begged him to believe him. He blamed everything on Shermon. The deputy gave him a sheet of paper and told him to write everything down and sign it. He had tried to stop writing halfway through the first paragraph. When he looked up, he saw the uniforms, the strong young men with their hands resting on their holstered guns. He had felt ashamed and caged. The only place he could look without seeing them was the paper in front of him.
When he was done, he realized the school had become filled with cops. There were dogs being lead through the halls. There were others talking on their radios. Outside he saw the lights of camera crews. The old deputy took his confession from him. The look Hakanen gave him chilled his soul.
'Go home. We have work to do here. We will talk more tomorrow. Don't make it hard for me to find you. Understand?' Hakanen looked at Kawalski until he nodded.
Kawalski pushed his way through the reporters outside and drove home.
He had not realized how long he had talked to the cops until he got to the dark of the parking lot. The flashing lights from the dozens of police cars gave him light to put his keys in his car ignition. Out of the lot, the darkness closed in around him. He pulled into his driveway. He sat in the dark car, trying to think for minutes possibly hours.
Kawalski opened his front door. Turning on his lights, he froze. Dangling from the stairway on the far side of his living room was a man's body. He could see a huge wound across the man's belly nearly severing him in
half. He could hardly make out the man's features. A rope had been wrapped across his face attaching him to the stair's banister. He took a step closer trying to see the man's face when a bright blur flashed in front of him.
The old man got his moving truck from the back of his pickup. Laying the truck flat on the floor he was able to roll the body on and wheel him out to his pickup. The old man wheeled the truck up the homemade wooden loading ramp and into the pickup box. The killer laid an old tire on top of the plastic-wrapped body and went into the house for the other corpse. The killer cleaned the house. The old man dusted and vacuumed humming the tune from _Snow White, Whistle While You Work_. He removed the dust bag from the vacuum. The old man placed a table lamp to highlight the dark bloodstain on the carpet and left the house.
Driving out to a bridge, the old man first scattered the dust from the vacuum bag and then threw in the scythe and empty bag. Eight miles out of town, one of the old man's drinking buddies was logging pulp for a local paper mill. He remembered that his friend owned a skidder and at one time showed him how it worked, the powerful diesel engine bulling the large machine through the woods running over small trees. Sitting high above the brush, he could gently press the controls and the machine would move. He helped his friend wrap steel cables around a dozen trees. With a slight increase above the diesel's idle speed, the wench on the skidder pulled the trees out of a marsh. The power of the machine now called to the old man.
The old man drove to the logging site. He climbed the short ladder to the cab of the John Deere skidder. Hot-wiring it, he drove it up to his pickup. Releasing the inch-thick skidding cable, he wrapped it around the bodies. Revving the diesel engine a few times, he winched in the bodies. He left the bodies hang from the back of the skidder. Tons of force had pulled the cable through the bodies, leaving the severed pieces dangling from the few shreds of tissue and plastic remaining between the steel loops.
The old man left for home. On the drive back he would occasionally caress the plastic wrapped bundles on the seat next to him. He had some more cooking to do for the neighborhood animals.
* * * *
_The darkness surrounding the hands is nearly complete. From the deck another card from the suit of swords is turned over._
A woman, blindfolded and tied, stands between five swords on her left and three on her right.
_The hands slowly reach for the light. The room plunges to black._
CHAPTER 13
: The Eight of Swords Henry was worried about the disappearance of Al. He was furious about the mess that Frank made interrogating Shermon. He had known Frank for years and had refused to believe the rumors that his impending retirement from the BCA was being forced upon him because of his loss of skills due to age.
Despite his worry over Al's disappearance, he was able to glean all the information Kawalski had. Once he started talking, he laid out all of his and Shermon's dealings, blackmail, embezzlement, extortion. He did have the presence of mind to blame everything on Shermon. Henry would have arrested him on the spot but for two things, his worry for Al and wanting to run the information about the case past the county prosecutor. He wanted Kawalski in jail. He knew from other cases he had against white-collar criminals, that small slipups during the arrest could lose a case in court.
He couldn't believe that Frank had lost the incentive with Shermon's interrogation nearly immediately. On top
