Henry had barely started to ask Makinen about yesterday's encounter with Shermon and Kawalski when his radio sprang to life. Nancy asked him to call back on a phone line. He asked to use the Waithe's phone. It was than he heard about another body found.
He left immediately for the logging site. There were ten police cars, the BCA van and a TV truck pulling up by the time he got there. Someone had had the sense to pull a logging truck across the entrance to the landing.
Henry had to walk a hundred yards down the muddy access road before he got a clean sight of the scene. The macabre sight of the black plastic lumps dangling six feet off the ground from the back of a skidder rolled his stomach.
Men from the BCA and sheriff's department were still photographing the ground around the skidder. One man was dusting the skidder for fingerprints. Two others were trying to make casts of some footprints and tire tracks. Henry stood back out of the way and looked at the lumps, the bodies. The bodies! All you could see sticking out of the plastic was a single white hand with a small trickle of blood dripping to a small puddle on the ground, but there were more lumps than just one body could make.
Henry realized that Frank was standing next to him. 'Do you know who the bodies are?'
'What?'
'The bodies?'
Frank looked again his mouth open. 'Oh, my God! You're right. There is more than one body there.'
In the anger of frustration, Frank erupted, 'God damn it! Didn't anyone notice there is more than one body here?' Everyone turned away. No one wanted to catch Frank's angry glare.
'Easy, Frank. The boys are tired. It's the bastard doing the killing we need to get. We need to get the son of a bitch now!'
The forensic crew seemed to have finished. They stood to the side, waiting for the okay to lower the bodies.
Frank finally asked, 'Is the coroner here yet?'
'He's still a few minutes away, Frank,' someone answered.
'We'll wait for him. I don't want any mistakes. I don't want this bastard to get away because some bit of evidence was lost or mishandled.'
They waited in silence, knowing who would be found in the plastic but not wanting to know. Using the excuse of not knowing to bear the tension of the waiting, the lined up men shifted their weight from one foot to the other. When the coroner walked up the road to the wood lot, he saw the macabre ballet of the men in front of the raised human sacrifice. For a minute, the coroner thought he was on the set of a cheap movie where someone stumbles on a cult in the process of offering a human sacrifice. This he knew would be the third body of this killer, without even checking. The killer's placing and mutilation of the bodies all had the same chilling affect. He prayed that when they opened the bundle, the killer would be dangling from the steel cable, not another victim. The men could change their minuet of horror to a dance of joy if only his prayer would be answered.
They lowered the bodies and for the first time knew in fact who the mangled remains belonged to.
* * * *
_The hands remove the card from the deck. Something has happened. The hands move in jerky motions, sometimes reaching for the light switch,
sometimes the card. Finally they rest on the table and tap a beat not quite on tune. Somehow the unexpected has occurred._
The top of the card has a lion's head with wings mounted on the caduceus of Hermes. Beneath, a boy and a girl are sharing two cups in a pledge.
_The hands finally reach for the light and plunge the room into darkness.
CHAPTER 14: The Two of Cups
Jeffrey had gone to the kitchen for a cup of coffee. It was nearly an hour since Hakanen had left. The TV stations had interrupted their programming with the information that another body had been found north of town. He believed James when he said his daughter was in danger. Normally, the coffee would calm him down instead his concerns for his daughter increased.
When he returned to the living room, James was asleep in the sofa chair. Lori was switching channels, trying to find more information about the newly discovered bodies. Watching them for a minute, he made a decision.
'I'm going out for a while. Be careful on who you let in and keep the doors locked.'
'Yes, Daddy,' came the slightly impertinent reply.
Lori looked at Jim, 'You know, I don't think he has had more than a couple of hours of sleep in the last three days.'
'I'll buy some groceries and then I'm going to talk to some of my friends at the VFW Post. You can call me there if you need me.'
'Okay, Dad.'
Lori watched Jim sleep for a while after her father left. He had sagged in the chair until his head twisted in an extreme angle. She decided to move him to her bedroom.
When she first touched him, he jerked awake, struggling, until he realized nothing was wrong. She whispered in his ear over and over that everything was all right and that he was going to bed. In the sleep-induced stupor, he let her lead him, stumbling, to the bed. She laid him down, covering him with a quilt from the foot of the bed. She watched him for a while. Tears formed in her eyes as she watched the peace of sleep erase the lost haunted look he had. She wanted to be part of that peace. She climbed under the quilt and eased his head between her breasts. Cradling his head in a gentle rocking motion, she fell asleep.
James dreamed of warmth and rhythmic motion. He smelled woman, heard a throbbing heartbeat, felt the rise and fall of a chest. From the dark embrace of sleep, he struggled to wake. He couldn't quite escape the clutches of sleep. Instead, he woke enough to match the rhythmic movement of the breathing. His hand had somehow penetrated her clothing. The hand moved against the warm soft flesh in time to the breathing. The tempo of breathing increased. One hand moved to the breasts and the other between the legs. In the soft dark embrace, they both moved faster. She shuddered and then went deeper into a sleep-induced serenity with only her breathing and heart keeping any beat. He continued to try to get the warm soft rhythm back, but slowly strength slipped away and sleep took over.
Lori woke first. She left him sleeping. At four-thirty, she started a meal for her father and Jim. The smell of food cooking brought Jim out from sleep and into a dazed state. The rumbling of his stomach registered as an alarm bell, forcing his body to move. Crawling from the bed, he stumbled down the hall until he found a bathroom. He washed the crust from his eyes with tepid water. He smiled at his reflection in the mirror as he remembered the dream he had. Was it a dream? He heard a door open from downstairs and a greeting between Lori and her father.
Jim stood in front of the mirror trying to remember. A knock at the door and Lori's voice said, 'Take a shower. You need it. Supper will be done in fifteen minutes. Don't be late.'
James needed time to think. He looked at himself in the mirror and
realized his hair was matted from sleep. He decided that a shower would help. He was lathering up when he heard a noise from the other side of the curtain and a cool breeze penetrated the warm moist air. Lori's voice came from the other side of the curtain. 'I've got some towels for you on the stool.'
He poked his head out from the shower. She smiled and said, 'Hurry up. My father is hungry.' He opened his mouth to speak but he didn't know what to say. Instead, he watched her smile and leave. He pounded his head on the tile wall in frustration and tried to remember.
Downstairs the table was set. Lori pointed to a chair for him to take. He wanted to say something but her father was here. He sat and tried to eat.
Jeffrey watched. Lori was happy but James seemed confused. Oh, well, that was how Lori's mother had always made him feel. He had never realized it till after she was gone. He loved the way she made him baffled. She was never boring. He would have to talk to James if he could get him alone. Jim needed to realize it would always be like that with Lori. But now he had some news.
