God damn fools! You God damn fools!' coming from Jeffrey as he pushed the TV crew toward their truck. He saw Bob come out of the house and grab Jeffrey, holding him back. With Bob holding Jeffrey, the TV crew started to scream back at him. The yelling kept up until suddenly the TV crew realized they were surrounded by the neighbors. They moved between Jeffrey and Bob and the reporters. The crowd didn't say anything, standing there, some in their nightclothes, watching the TV crew. They just moved closer and closer to the crew, backing them up to their truck.
After the reporters left, the neighborhood settled back to the stillness of the night. It was after midnight when the TV truck showed up again. It drove quietly down the street. Stopping by the broken camera, someone got out, grabbed it, and they drove off.
* * * *
The old man went to the VFW for a beer. He had been sure that with the cop dead, he would have a clear shot at taking Lori. When he had seen the TV reporters harassing Lori's father, he was positive he could sneak in the back and take her. Then that strange figure came out of the dark towards his truck.
It had taken him until noon to find out where Lori was staying after she had left her apartment. He didn't understand why the high he got from the slow killing of Jenny and Pike had worn off already. The delay in finding Lori put his nerves on edge. He had known it was too dangerous to try to capture either Kawalski or the cop. But God damn it, he needed the fix of torturing someone. Without Lori waiting for him in the basement, he had been so tempted to try to stop someone in the street to bring back to his house.
He took another sip of beer and closed his eyes. He remembered the feel of Jenny's heart in his hands and the wonder he had felt when he placed his own hand red with her blood over his chest. He took another sip and thought of watching the throbbing motion of the sticks he had placed near Pike's heart and lungs and timing his own pulse and breathing to match. He felt again the merging of his body with their dying bodies. The thrill! The high!
A chill passed through the old man as he remembered the lethal shadow he saw surge toward him out of the night. Who or what was that shadow? What right did it have in interfering? He didn't fear the shadow he saw in the camera light. He had never really felt fear in his whole life. It was more a resentment of the shadow's interference with his plans. He had cowed to his father and then his wife not out of fear, but an avoidance of someone strong enough to keep him from his pleasure and to give him pain. His glass was empty.
He went to the bar to get another. For the first time he heard that Jeffrey had stopped by for help. He became angry at being thwarted. He gulped his beer. He would add Jeffrey and the others to his list. But first he would get Lori. He could imagine the pleasure of drinking with them in sympathy after Lori disappeared. Maybe he could keep her body in the chest freezer he just bought and installed in his basement. He could spend many nights drinking with them as they wondered what happened to her, hoping she was still alive.
This time, he ordered a whiskey with a beer chaser as he planned amid the loud noises of the busy bar.
* * * *
_The light. The hands. The silent room. A barely audible_ swoosh _and a card turns over. The harsh glaring light from the lamp highlights the exposed card._
Rain clouds with a heart that has three swords piercing it points away from the shadowy figure behind the deck.
_The hands flex, the figure sighs, the ambiguity of the card pervades the dark, silent room. Darkness._
CHAPTER 15: The Three of Swords reversed
The morning briefing at the sheriff's station was filled with silence.
A few of the officers sat in a stunned daze, a hint of moisture formed along the edges of their eyes. The most profound change was in Frank. He had seemed to age twenty years over the night. His haggard face was filled with deep lines and lost sleep. He still held court over the assembled officers with professional control, but a lost, defeated essence emanated from him.
Henry was obviously tired and worn but he still had full mastery of himself and the job. The other officers slowly begin to turn to him for leadership. When a lab report had showed blood residue had been found near one of the back entrances of the school building, the assembled officers paused until Henry commented that he and Frank would go back over the site. After the briefing was ended, the officers waited until Henry nodded before they left.
As everyone left the room, Henry pulled Vernon aside. 'Vern, I'd like to talk to you off the record?'
'Okay, Henry. What is it?'
'Frank is not holding up too well. I think we should keep an eye on him. Something happened to him when Al got taken last night. Maybe he's blaming himself. I don't know but I don't think he should be alone. He could get in trouble. I could ask one of the deputies to keep an eye on him but he's BCA. I don't want any trouble between agencies now. It's hard enough coordinating local police, three different county sheriffs' departments, the state police, and the BCA without getting into any rivalries. If Frank doesn't get his act together in time and lets something slip by, the whole investigation could be gone.
'Vernon, I know I can't order you. But if you could keep a BCA agent by Frank until he can get back up to speed, it would sure help.'
'You're right, Henry. Al's disappearance and murder really threw Frank. I'll keep an eye on him. If you could keep it between us, I'd appreciate it.'
'Of course! That's why I talked to you in private.'
'And Henry ... I want to be there when we get the son of a bitch. I want to be there...' Vernon ended with a plea.
The old man woke with a splitting headache. He started some coffee brewing. He got a towel, wrapped the last two ice cubes in the refrigerator in it, and placed it on his forehead. It didn't help.
Stumbling down the basement stairs, he went to his new freezer. He opened the towel and threw the two half melted ice cubes toward the corner floor drain. He picked up Jenny's heart, wrapped it in the damp towel, and rubbed it slowly across his head. He had hated to freeze her heart because he had loved the firm feel and resilience of the cool muscle. He had frozen the heart after he noticed a slight darkening to the compact red flesh. He had known that rot was only a few hours away if it wasn't frozen.
He took a deep breath of the cold freezer air coming from the small icebox. The relief of the cold compress permitted him to fully open his eyes.
A smile played across the old man's features as he viewed his prizes, the small package containing the testicles and shriveled penis of Pike, the equally small bundle containing the cop's frozen eyes, and the larger mass of Kawalski's tongue. There had been more bundles of frozen meat he had taken on whim from his victims but they had been cooked and now resided in the stomachs of the neighborhood pets. He had remembered hearing Reverend Peterson preach about Ahab and Jezebel being eaten by dogs. Somehow the preacher's words about God's Judgment on the two stayed with him. He had become Elijah rejoicing in God's Judgment on the weak. The weak were sinners by their very being and deserved judgment. The feasting of the dogs was just retribution to the obvious sin of weakness.
He had decided to keep only one piece of flesh from each of his _pleasures_. It had been so hard to decide on which piece to save. Somehow an inner voice had talked to him through his hands on which parts to carve off the bodies. It had been much harder to decide on what to keep after the frozen packages had been made.
With his headache gone, he put Jenny's heart back inside the freezer. Upstairs he drank his coffee. Closing his eyes, he traced Lori's body with his hands. He could feel the tingling as, in his mind, he stroked her corpse searching for parts to save. Anyone watching from the window would imagine they were seeing an old man in the throws of an erotic dream, the slight smile and slow rhythmic hand motions. They would have looked around the room for a Playboy or an erotic video playing on the TV. Instead, all they would find was a Bible, a few newspapers turned to either sports or the business section, and ESPN playing on the TV.
* * * *
Frank and Henry walked through the back door of the closed school.
Henry immediately noticed that the transition between the sunlit parking lot and the dark hall would blind
