Hallowed (27 page)

Mom and Dad took one bedroom.  Mrs. Wicke and Claudia, the other.  Which left me on the couch again.

Of course, I slept fitfully, waking up every time I heard a strange noise, which was generally, every few minutes when you’re in an unfamiliar place.  Around two or so I got up to use the restroom, which was a glorified Porta-Potty behind the house, basically a seat, a bucket, and a curtain.  I chose just to walk a few steps further out into the woods and relieve myself the old-fashioned way.

The snap of a stick cut off my flow like the switch of a light.

I started to call out then hesitated.  I wasn’t being paranoid.  After that letter, I had real solid reasons to be scared.  I zipped up and started back toward the cabin in a round-about direction, hoping that in the darkness I might confuse whoever might be out there.

The moon was out and it cast a silvery glow over the still surface of the lake.  I waited there for a several minutes listening for more movement.  There was none.

The still unbroken surface of the lake was indescribably beautiful, like fluorescent blue paint on a dark canvass.  At some point, I found myself thinking of Claudia.  If anything ever happened to her, I thought… The ache I had felt for her the night I’d slept over at the Wicke’s house returned and my knees began to tremble, not from fear but from something stronger.

Confident that I had imagined the earlier sound, I started back around the side of the house toward the door which I’d used to get out earlier.  It was completely shrouded in darkness from the shade of the cabin, and I couldn’t see my hand in front of my face.  This was why I managed to run full-face into someone coming the other way.

We both gasped and threw out our hands.  I fell back on my ass, and I heard the other let out a honking burst of laughter.

Claudia.

“Here, reach up to me,” the disembodied voice floated down to me.

I reached up.  Her hands closed around mine.  I grasped them and yanked her down with me.  She buried the squeal between tightened lips and fell atop me.

That was all it took.

It had been a day, a week, a month of more pressures and anxiety than two people our age could normally be expected to cope with and something was bound to give.  The building steam had to have an outlet.

We struggled there in the darkness.  Our lips first burning against cold flesh that slowly warmed to each other’s touch.  I found the nape of her neck, the space beneath her ear, the prickly hair at the base of her neck.  Our kisses turned more fevered like the starving finding food at last.  We fumbled beneath each other’s loose clothes and before I knew what was happening, it was over.

She retreated, buttoned, and disappeared.  If I hadn’t seen her emerge out of the shadows and into the moonlight, I would have thought it all a mercilessly painful dream.

But she had been there.  I still felt her heat dissipating.  I could still taste the saltiness of her skin.  I could smell her on my clothes.

I rose to my feet, guiltily and started back the way I’d come.

Oh God, what was I doing, here, just yards away from everyone that matters in my life.

Maybe she matters more, I thought.

Paul.

I froze there in the shadows, throwing my back up against the side of the cabin with a thump.  I remained in that position for what must have been five of the longest minutes of my life.  I heard no other sounds beside crickets and an owl somewhere in the distance.  It had been as distinct a voice as the ones I’d heard before, but this time there was urgency, like a beckoning.

Finally, I just forced my legs moving again and returned to the cabin and the couch.  I lay there for a few minutes listening for movement in another part of the cabin but she had already returned to bed.  There were no raised voices.  No accusations.

My heartbeat returned to normal, I let my guard down, and I collapsed into unconsciousness like a prizefighter to the mat.

Certain I must be dreaming, I awoke to the sound of laughter and the smell of eggs and bacon.

Mom and Dad sat together out on the covered patio with a propane-powered stove, cooking breakfast.  Both smiled and teased each other as if this were some sort of vacation privilege for which they had paid thousands of dollars.

I sat at the table unannounced and watched them in half-awake awe as they playfully got in each other’s way.  When I’d finally had about all I could take, I strategically scraped the legs of my chair.

They looked around in surprise.  “Morning, Paul,” Mom said.  “How did you sleep?”

“I’d prefer to be at home in my own bed,” I grumbled.  “What’s the plan for today?”

“As soon as we get the all-clear from the Rangers, we’ll go pick up some things at home and go to the hotel,” Dad responded.

“Which hotel?”

Dad gave me a patronizing look.

I yawned.  “Let me guess, you don’t know.”

“But hey, you always have the option of staying here.”  He gave Mom a wink and bumped her with his hip.  “Personally, I’m all for sticking around.”

Mom exchanged sour expressions with me.  “I think my son and I are on the same page on this one.  There’s no substitute for a hot shower and a toilet that flushes, right Paul?”

I felt my face heat up with the association of my late night excursion.  I avoided eye-contact and chose instead to stare around at the lake.  “Exactly,” I answered, although I found a bit of sadness in my voice that I hadn’t intended.  She glanced over at me, her “mother-sense” tingling, but refrained from commenting.

Mrs. Wicke and Claudia awoke around fifteen minutes later and joined me at the table--Mrs. Wicke in one of Mom’s old nightgowns and Claudia in my old baggy extra-large Dallas Cowboys sweater that someone (possibly one of the officers) had packed from my room.  I glanced at her briefly, but she avoided all eye contact this morning.  Couldn’t say I blame her.  She hadn’t bothered to brush her hair and looked like one of the Addams Family’s distant cousins.

As unattractive as she may have thought she looked, my heart was racing just because of her proximity.  I could see every curve, no matter how muted, beneath the baggy sweater.  Consciously, I tried to ignore her presence, but found it difficult.

When Mom held her hands out in an invitation to say grace, Dad set a tray of bacon down in the center of the table, gave her a tolerant look, and finally grasped me and Mom’s hands from his standing position over his place at the crowded table.

“Bless us oh Lord and this food,” Mom began.

I glanced up and watched Claudia open her eyes and stare openly at me while everyone else’s heads were bowed.  I tried to read that enigmatic expression, but finally gave up and mouthed the word “What?”  She simply lowered her eyes again, giving me no reaction.

“Watch over and protect our family from evil. Please guide the authorities to the right man and please stop…”  The words escaped her and her lips began to quiver.

Dad squeezed her hand and announced that the prayer of blessing was over with an emphatic “Amen.”  He leaned down, pecked Mom on the forehead before taking his seat.

“Well, I have to say, despite all the revelations I experienced yesterday, I slept like a log,” Mrs. Wicke told everyone.

“Maybe
because
of all that,” Mom replied, passing out plates and utensils.

“Psychological tension has a way of taking a physical toll on the human body,” Dad added, coming around with the cast-iron skillet and distributing the scrambled eggs.  “The human being can act very uncharacteristically under great stress.”

Claudia fixed accusatory eyes on me again.

I shot her a look, swallowing awkwardly.

“There was a lot of activity last night,” Mom stated.  “I heard footsteps early this morning.  Did you have problems getting to sleep, Paul?”

“I think there’s something everyone should know in case it’s not public knowledge by now,” Claudia announced, casting a lock of hair out of her eyes with a flick of her head.

My leg shot out and Mrs. Wicke gave a yell.  She gave me a wounded, confused look.

“Sorry, I…”

“So what’s got you two so agitated this morning?”

I just stared resolutely down into my plate, calmly occupying my mouth with food, waiting for the blade to drop and spill my raging teenaged hormones across the table for everyone to see.

“Paul’s been having night terrors,” Claudia announced anti-climactically.  “Very specific ones, in fact, almost every night.”

I somehow managed to relax and stiffen again all in the course of a few scant moments.  “Claudia?” I growled.

Dad stared at her, but never stopped chewing.  “I’m listening.”

“Claudia,” Mrs. Wicke warned.

“Also Paul and I emphatically believe that we should talk to this woman at the church--whoever she is or isn’t or claims to be or doesn’t claim to be--because she’s somehow connected to all this.”

“Enough Claudia,” Mrs. Wicke snapped, glancing up at my father.  “Not this morning.”

He gave her a nod and continued his meal unabated.

As Mrs. Wicke and Mom cleared the table, Dad gave me and Claudia a look that said “Let’s have a talk, you two.  Now.”

“We’re going for a walk,” he announced, giving Mom a peck on the cheek.

Wordlessly following him outside, we started down the dirt road that wound back to Highway 98.  Thick woods bordered both sides of the road, and the only sounds were birds and agitated squirrels.  From our distance from the highway, we couldn’t even hear traffic.

“Ok, let’s talk about last night.”

My blood ran cold.

“Either one of you went through my stuff in my truck last night or we have a lot more to worry about.”

“I’m sorry.”  Claudia was giving my father a hang-dog expression.  “I know I wasn’t supposed to but it was unlocked and I figured maybe you did it on purpose because you wanted us to give you our input but you couldn’t technically just hand it all to us.”

“Do you ever stop and listen to the nonsense that comes out of your mouth sometimes, Claudia?” my father replied.

Claudia lowered her head.  “Sorry about that, Mr. Graves.  I should have asked.”

“Whether you got a look of the evidence or not isn’t important.  I’m not naive.  I assumed that Frick knows everything Frack knows.”

“Ok, the truth is I had to see those photos because I was afraid your son might have left out a detail that was important.”

“I was in and out of the car all night and the one time I forget to lock it was the last time.  How do you like that?”

I gave a labored sigh and laughed a little too loudly.  “Yeah, how do you like that?”

Dad’s probing eyes swept over me.  “Ok, what’s all this about very specific night terrors?”

I fought the urge to glare at Claudia.  “I figure I’m just anxious about everything that’s going on.  Claudia’s just worried.”  I fixed her with a look that dared her to contradict me.  She got the message for a change.

Dad gave me a tolerant look before he continued:  “By the way, we’re acting on the assumption that there’s a personal connection between the perp and his victims.  Our team is interviewing every possible connection,” he began.  “If there’s anything, any hunch you might have about who this person might be, I need to know.”

“Any chance the killer’s our age,” Claudia asked.  “A teenager.”

I looked at her with surprise.

My father gave her an interested look.  “What makes you think that?”

“Access.  It’s easier and less suspicious for a teen to get close to another kid his age than an adult would.  In today’s day and age, an adult’s interest in a teenager who is unrelated to him might appear weird, y’know?  Raises questions.  No one questions why two teenagers are hanging out together, though.”

“Do either of you know a Gabriel?”

I’d only had a vaguely prophetic dream involving the blowing of a trumpet.  Claudia and I glanced at each other, took advantage of the loophole and both shook our heads.

“Maybe a Gabe?”

“Have you checked the vital records of the students at the schools of the victims?”

“We started running the names minutes after we got a hold of the letter,” Dad answered.  “They’ve been checking students, teachers, school employees, and even parents.  It’s an enormous task and so far they’ve only found two Gabriels and neither of them is likely.”

“Maybe the letters have been scrambled to spell ‘Gabriel,’” Claudia offered.  She began to nibble her lip and hum to herself.

“Dad, why would a murder suspect just sign his name to a threatening letter?”

“It’s unlikely, I agree, unless he wants to be caught.”

“Wouldn’t it be more likely that he is trying to deceive us, maybe misdirect us?”

“Or even lead you to the wrong man,” Claudia offered.

“Why?”

My father shrugged.  “Paul, one of the reasons why profiling is such a unreliable profession is because in order to catch some of these monsters you have to think like them and most people just don’t want to go there.  Most can’t even imagine those depths, nor would ever want to.”

“Maybe he wants to be a martyr,” Claudia offered.  “I mean, as long as we’re on the whole religious thing, wouldn’t that fit?”

My Dad gave Claudia a blank look then turned to me.  “Since we’re on this subject, you should know that in religious lore the angel Gabriel is known not just to Christians and Jews, but to Muslims as well.  Christians believe he foretold the births of John the Baptist and Jesus, and Muslims believe that he revealed the Koran to Muhammad.  He is both considered in Biblical tradition to be a messenger from God and an Angel of Death.”  He grumbled under his breath and started walking again.

“So obviously, this guy’s either got a God complex or wants us to think that he does,” Claudia interjected.  “He may even have followers that believe the same thing he does, which would fit in with the whole martyr thing.  In fact, if there was more than one…”

“Before you tack on another theory, there’s no reason to suspect there’s more than one of these guys.”  He gave me a look then.  “One of the goals of this job is to eliminate theories.  Eliminate suspects.  Narrow, narrow, narrow.”

“Sir Arthur Conan Doyle. 
Once you eliminate the impossible, whatever remains, no matter how improbable, must be the truth,” Claudia quipped, flashing him a smile that couldn’t mask an uncharacteristic neediness.

Dad put a hand on her shoulder.  “Sherlock Holmes was a fictional character, kiddo,” Dad replied.  “We’re dealing with reality here and life is always messier than fiction.”

“Real,” Claudia suddenly snapped.  “Real big.”

Dad and I glanced at each other uneasily.

“The letters in ‘Gabriel.’ That’s one of the derivations,” she announced.

“Hon, sometimes the size of your brain scares me.”  He patted her shoulder.

“Dad, how long do we have to hide here?”

“We’re leaving as soon as I get the call.  BeBe will be putting us up somewhere, tonight or tomorrow morning at the latest.”

“What about school?” I asked.

“You’ll go to school like normal as long as you don’t go off-campus,” Dad explained.  “They’re going to set up some sort of escort to get you back to town.”

Claudia and I traded troubled looks.

“And how long are we expected to live like this?”

My father sighed.  “I don’t know, Paul.  It’ll take as long as it takes.”

I stopped.  “What about Tracy Tatum?”

He swung around, pinned me in place with his eyes, and gave a firm shake of his head.  “This woman is not the girl me and your uncle brought out of that house thirty-five years ago, Paul.  I already told you.”  He dropped his head and ran a hand through his thinning hair.  “One thing’s sure. She’s not our suspect.  Your Uncle says that she never left the church the night of Bridgette’s murder.”

I continued: “The way I see it, she could know the killer and could lead us right to him, in which case, it would be morally reprehensible not to talk to her and...”

“And all we’re wasting by talking to her is time,” Dad interrupted me.  “Well, I can save us all some time, because we gave her ample opportunity to talk, and she’s given us nothing but nonsense.”

Claudia stared up at my father with interest.  “What type of nonsense exactly?”

He gave her a single look of warning then started back toward the camp again.  “The only thing that matters is that we got no hard evidence that she knows anything.  She’s a typical sicko looking for attention.  Your uncle’s a bigger sap than I ever gave him credit for.”

“He believes her then?”

“The man believes a lot of things,” he spat.  “Listen, I’m not going to debate you.  You’re just going to have to trust me on this and stop fighting me.”

“If you took Mom and me out of this equation, would you still go about the investigation the same way?” I asked him.  “Or are you playing it safe because of us?”

He took a long breath and stared out into the trees.  Finally, he turned and started back toward camp.  “I don’t want to leave the girls alone for too long, for more reasons than one.  C’mon.”

“We’re right behind you,” Claudia called back.

“Don’t forget that I have to play at the varsity game tonight.”

“We’ll talk about it,” he replied enigmatically, his back turned to me.

As his footsteps faded up the road, the reality of what I’d just done settled upon me: I’d just forced my father to face a truth that he had been unwilling to admit.  He was playing it safe because of his family, and as a result of that, he could be putting us at greater danger by giving the killer more time.

Once the feeling of anger and frustration faded, I was left with a growing sense of awkwardness between me and Claudia that hadn’t been there before.

Then I felt something peculiar.  Warmth on my upper arm and I realized with dumbstruck amazement that I wasn’t going to have to say a word, because the girl I wanted with all my heart was resting her head against me.

I felt my arms go around her and that was the only invitation she needed.  She pulled herself tightly against me and my senses exploded.  Everything was suddenly enhanced.  I could smell the live oak and the musk of her hair; hear the gentle morning breeze, and her rhythmic heartbeat against me; feel the dew moistening my shoes and every fine hair of her bare arm that intertwined with mine.

“Four months ago, I truly wanted to die,” she said, her eyes squeezed shut against the memory.  It was the most vulnerable I’d seen her since that day in the bleachers when she’d told me about the dream of her father.  Finally, she gazed up at me with those wide dark eyes, as bright with life as I’d ever yet seen them.  “Now that I don’t want to, someone’s threatened to kill us.”

“God has got a dark sense of humor.”

She gave an off-kilter croak of amusement.

I touched her face, and she turned dutifully up to me.  We kissed and this time there was no awkwardness between us.

“I suggest we keep this to ourselves.”

“What, the intelligentsia?  They made up their minds a long time ago that this is what we’ve been doing all along.”

The sound of an engine interrupted us.  I grabbed her and pulled her off the road and deeper into the trees.  We waited there in silence as a red truck rumbled up the dirt road.  Instantly, I knew who it was and started toward it.

Of course, Claudia grabbed my arm and gave me an incredulous look.

“It’s Uncle Hank,” I explained, realizing that my communication skills had to significantly improve if I was ever going to pull off a relationship with a member of the opposite sex.

I rushed after the truck and slapped the side.  It stopped and Uncle Hank’s head popped out of the window.  “Paul, what are you..?”  Then he must have seen Claudia behind me.  “Well, if it isn’t Her Royal Highness herself.  I wondered if I’d ever get the pleasure of welcoming you back.”

“Well, I guess we travel in different circles, me being a heathen and all.”

“Haven’t you heard?  The Pope says we can take your kind too now.”  He smiled uneasily as he suddenly became aware of the environment.  Taking a quick look around, he muttered suspiciously, “Everything okay?”

“We’ve got no electricity or running water,” Claudia felt it necessary to say.  “You didn’t happen to bring the twentieth century with you, did you?”

Uncle Hank gave her a sympathetic smile.  “Climb in.”  He pushed open the passenger door for us and watched as I helped Claudia inside.  A satisfied expression settled on his face and he sighed, glancing around at the trees outside.  “God bless this place.  It holds such great memories for me.”  Checking to see if we were settled, he put the truck into drive.  “Caught my first fish here.  Kissed my first girl.”

Claudia reached out and tagged him lightly on the arm.  “You?”

“Believe it,” Uncle Hank replied with a certain amount of pride.  “I was an actual teenager before I took my vows, y’know.”

The most interesting part of his previous statement was his insinuation that he’d had kissed more than one girl.  “So, you had a girlfriend, Uncle Hank?”

“Oh, I had a few flings, but only one serious relationship.  That was the only way I could be sure if I was doing the right thing.  I was head over heels once, but…”  He shook his head with a wistful smile.  “It
didn’t work out.  I took it as a sign
that I was being called for something else.”