anyone who entered for a period of time. The two men waited until their eyes adjusted to the gloomy hall. Henry saw the numbered yellow tag that marked the blood residue against the wall a few feet down from where they stood. Henry saw that the marker was opposite an empty doorway. The killer could have waited there for Al to enter the back door. Blinded by the dark hall, Al would have been easy prey.
Henry continued down the hall with Frank following in silence. A few steps down the hallway Henry smelled ammonia. He followed his nose to an open janitorial closet. Inside was a handcart, a mop with a bucket on rollers, and a huge industrial sink that looked like everything from the acids of the chemistry lab to last week's chili had been flushed down it. Once inside the closet, Henry saw the empty gallon container marked as disinfecting cleanser resting next to the roller bucket.
'Look's like this is where he cleaned up after ambushing Al back
there.'
Frank didn't answer. Henry looked and saw the emptiness in Frank's eyes. He repeated the comment and finally got a noncommittal, 'Yeah,' from Frank.
Henry continued down the hall to the front of the building. He walked slowly trying to decide if the new information had narrowed the suspect list any. Henry figured that the ambush in back of the school was a little too cute for someone just from the area. The killer would either have had to work in the building or had gone to school here. The school had been built thirty years ago, so the best the new information could do would be to eliminate the one or two on the list that had moved into the area in the last few years and never worked in the building.
'We need to go over the employee list for the school again and talk to Shermon. We need some answers from him.' Henry glanced at Frank. His ghastly pale face and vacant eyes stopped him in his tracks. 'Are you all right, Frank?'
'Fine. Fine. I'm fine. I think I need to get a little rest. I've been up for nearly thirty-six hours. Could you check the employee records? We could meet at my motel in a couple of hours. After going over the records together, we could then talk to Shermon. Sound okay, Henry?'
'Sure, Frank. I'll see you in a couple of hours.'
Henry sat in front of the computer screen. He had spent the last two hours checking the school's employee records with the notes compiled by the task force. He'd had to run background checks on two of the names. The results were zip. He had been unable to eliminate any of the names on the task force list using the new information. Everyone had either gone to the high school at some time in the past or had done some work at the building. Being a small community, everyone on the list seemed to have a connection to where the bodies had been found, a cousin worked here or a neighbor over there. The task force hadn't had time to see if anyone had a strong match on knowledge about the logging site. Henry felt something picking at his mind every time he looked through the employee list at the school. Something that wouldn't come up to where he could see it. Maybe going over the records with Frank would jar whatever was picking at his mind loose?
When Frank opened the door, he looked terrible. There seemed to be a slight tremor to his voice. The lines on his face had gone deeper, outlining his eyes and mouth with darkness.
'Henry, I need more rest. Could we put off seeing Shermon until the morning? It's already getting late,' came the hesitant whisper.
'Sure, Frank. Do you need anything?'
'No. Thanks for asking, but all I really need is a few hours of sleep.'
Henry went back to the station to make another run at the employee records.
Vernon walked in at about midnight. 'You need a break, Henry. How about some of the sludge your boys call coffee?'
Rubbing the strain from his eyes, Henry replied, 'Okay, Vern.'
In the small break room, they sipped the coffee and munched on stale bars from the vending machine. Vernon asked, 'What did Frank find out from Shermon? He hasn't turned in a report yet.'
'What! Frank saw Shermon?'
'Yeah. The agent keeping an eye on Shermon saw Frank go into his house late in the afternoon. He had to have been inside at least a couple of hours.'
'Damn!' The small thing picking at the back of his mind finally came to the front, Sioux Bluff! Frank had talked to him about growing up in a small town in South Dakota, possibly Sioux Bluff. It had been Sioux something or another. Frank had prided himself in how, living in a small town, everyone knew everyone else back forty years ago. Frank had just come back from a visit home. He had been depressed on how large the town had grown since the high-tech component company had started up.
Henry hurried to his office, leaving a confused Vernon behind.
Searching though the employee records, Henry found Jefferson William Shermon graduated from Lincoln High School, Sioux Bluff, South Dakota.
* * * *
Sandra looked up from her desk and stopped breathing. James Makinen stood in the doorway. She stared frozen. The pounding of her heart grew louder
and louder until a final surge started her breathing again. She whispered, 'Come in.'
He moved into the chair across from her desk. With the insight she had from her last interview with him, she saw the lethal motions of a predator and not the shuffling of a middle-aged man.
After her second breath of air, she had recovered to the point she could ask questions. 'Is there a reason you stopped by now? You were scheduled to come in next week.'
'I know the one doing the killing is going to try to get Lori.' When he saw Sandra about to speak, he stopped her with a shake of his head and continued. 'I don't know how I know this but I do. I know that Kawalski or Shermon had to know something about the killings, so I had a little talk with them a couple of days ago. I pushed them hard. Kawalski was murdered that night. I am not going to let the killer make the next move. I need to find the killer but ... I ... don't ... know ... how?'
He looked at Sandra. She turned away. She wished she could think of him as an average middle-aged man. Every time she looked at him, she saw beyond the facade, a spark of light behind the eyes, a small gesture that hinted at enormous power held in check. With her eyes focused on the notes scattered across her desk, she said. 'You do it the same way you handle all problems.
You gather everything you know about the problem. You poke at it. You shift it. You sort it. When an idea comes out, you try it. If it works, fine. If it doesn't, you add it to what you know and start over again.'
Sandra glanced up from her desk. Her eyes were caught in Makinen's stare. Unable to turn away, she heard him say. 'I need to see the information you have. I need you to poke and prod.' He held her eyes for a ten-second eternity and then looked away.
James left Sandra's office with barely more information than when he came. He never knew about the phone calls to the county and state attorneys.
He never knew about the thinly veiled threat delivered to the school district's attorney, Jack Andrews, by Sandra. He never knew about the forces released by her prodding.
James walked the streets, trying to think. He wandered the blocks. He felt something important needed to work its way out of his mind. He used the physical exertion of his pounding steps to try to work it out. He stopped. His stomach growled from the scent of food drifting down the street. The sidewalk was filled with people drifting in and out of a corner church to their cars and back again. A basement window was open letting escape the aroma of a potluck meal and the sounds of dishes and voices.
Shermon! Shermon in church! His mother had told him after they had left the church so many days ago that Shermon was a deacon there. A deacon had to earn his post. Records were kept by churches. Records that could mean something!
Tom Peterson always took a few hours in the afternoon to sit and pray in the sanctuary. After his meditations he would feel strengthened, worthy of telling his flock God's word. He never understood why so many from his congregation never came back after that Sunday a few weeks ago. He took a few minutes every day to pray damnation on the two that started the exodus from the morning worship service, the evil Jezebel that started the walk out and the Ahab that followed after her. Tom had always loved the Old Testament. He understood and worshiped the power of absolute evil and the complete judgment of the ancient prophets. He prayed to God every day to give him a prophecy, a calling down of destruction. He wanted to experience the burning fire of God's wrath delivering destruction to sinners. He understood the pain felt by Jonah when after prophesying the destruction of
