At his unit he opened the driver side door and told me he’d be back in a flash. I waved after him as he drove west on Colorado and hung a right up 2nd.
Someone’s dog sensed Mojo and started to bark from a backyard. Someone else was weed whacking. Ordinary life.
I patted my thigh. Mojo scuffled over and we started down the street toward the house thick with gnomes.
“Lucy!”
Instantly goose pimples broke out.
Sherman ran down the middle of the street towards me, his hand up, waving, like he had to make sure and be seen.
I held in place. Sherman slowed, breathing heavily.
“Hey.”
“Hey.”
“Aren’t you supposed to be in class?”
“Not when Cousin Ruth is doing something potentially stupid.” He smiled. “Or brave. Brave. Yeah. That’s what I meant.”
He’d parked on Colorado’s south curb, back bumper to 2nd. Well distant from Mrs. Pederson’s place, but the angle still allowed him to see anyone that might be heading towards the house.
We walked down the sidewalk towards the last house on the street. Mojo padded ahead of us.
Sherman said, “I nearly crapped when I saw the cop car.”
“Yeah?”
“Totally.”
“Why did you…”
“I came here right from the school office.”
“You did?”
“Yeah. I thought about calling you. I was pretty sure this was where you’d come. I would’ve called but…I left my phone in my locker. Like a dumb ass. Didn’t even think about it. Just got out of the office and went right to my car. I figured if I went out to your place I’d miss you. Have to come all the way back to town to catch up to you.”
“Thank you.”
“Uh huh.”
A diesel rig drove down 3rd. The sound subsided, leaving the tiny dog barking continuously the major sound on the street.
A grey concrete slab driveway led to the garage door. Hedges between the house west of Mrs. Pederson’s and her garage allowed for a slender passage to get to the back of the house. A row of bushes and weeds bordered 3rd on the east edge of the property. On that side of the house there was a lot more walking-space.
I looked at Sherman.
“You’re already truant. Ready for some more criminal activity?”
“For you. No one else.”
“Good.” I stepped onto the lawn and started for the east side of the house. “Just keep those gnomes away from me. They are too creepy.”
My phone started to buzz in my pocket.
I pulled it out. Stopped walking. Sherman looked back towards the street, making sure no one was looking at us and totally confirming we were totally suspicious just in case any onlooker hadn’t arrived at that conclusion yet.
“Hello?”
“Ms. McCall. Dina.”
“Hi.”
“You called.”
“Yes.” I stared at the front door. “1650 Colorado Street. It’s right next to 3rd Street. There are gnomes all over. You can’t miss it.”
A pause. Anyone else would’ve asked questions. Dad. Jack. Sherman. Maddy.
Dina said, “On my way.” The line died.
I flipped the phone shut. Looked at Sherman.
“We’re not waiting for her.”
I walked past him and started looping around the side of the house.
“For who? Lucy…”
Sherman’s voice muffled as I turned around the corner of the house into the backyard.
Chapter 51
He was a cheery, red-cheeked gnome. His mouth gaped open revealing a row of small teeth, too small and too white, eerie, like kernels of an albino corn. His eyes were shut in mid-song or mid-burp. Beer foam from the tiny mug in his tiny hand had stuck to his beard from one of his increasingly drunken draughts of the ale.
I hoped he’d had enough beer that he wouldn’t feel the impact.
At the same time, I could care less.
On the first swing, the glass pane in the door between the back patio and the kitchen cracked and splintered. Dozens of future individual chunks of glass formed, ready to be popped free of their frame.
I checked the drunken gnome. He seemed to be holding together. This one not ceramic, but hefty, made of stone. I made sure my grip around his backside was firm and I swung him into the glass a second time. A third.
Mojo barked each swing. Emotional support.
Chunks of glass fell from the window. Dropped onto the kitchen floor inside. I adjusted my grip and used the gnome’s head to knock out big pieces of glass and then crush down the glass remaining on the bottom of the pane, grind it down so I could reach through and try and unlock the door without gashing my wrist open.
I switched the gnome from the right to the left hand and cried out.
“What?” Sherman tensed up.
“Glass.” I pitched the gnome off the patio. Mojo followed the arc. “Mojo. No.” She looked back at me and stayed in place. I studied my left fingertips. Beads of blood had formed on my thumb and index finger. I’d live.
I reached back through the windowpane and struggled with the doorknob for a moment. The little thumb sticking out didn’t want to budge. Then it did. I drew my arm back out the freshly made gap and turned the doorknob. The door opened. I pushed it wide open. Looked back at Sherman. He was pale. His eyes seemed ready to pop. You’d think I’d been bashing his head against something.
Boxes were stacked in the kitchen. Black marker written on the sides. ‘Utensils.’ ‘Plates.’
The kitchen counters were cleared off with the exception of a dish drainer tipped up onto its end, resting upon the rubber mat once intended to catch the drips from drying dishes. White, it looked like the spinal column and ribs of some animal that’d died and then denuded braced against the wall.
The refrigerator hummed.
Through the kitchen doorway part of the living room was visible. The windows covered by curtain, the light dim. The front door leading to the flat, recently mowed front yard.
“Maddy?”
Sherman pointed. “Where does that go?”
It was the door just the other side of the kitchen table.
“I don’t know.”
Sherman walked around the kitchen table and opened the door. It swung out into the kitchen. He looked into the dark. Looked at me.
“Basement.”
“I’m going to look up here.”
“Ok.”
“Ok.”
I left him to do whatever he felt like. We’d check the basement together if we had to.
Mojo whined. She stood on the steps leading to the back porch, head down, sniffing at the bits of shattered glass that had landed outside.
“Mojo. Stay.”
Her eyes rolled up, her brow crimped. She looked ashamed like she’d had something to do with the glass breaking.
I jabbed a finger. “Stay. Stay.” Insistent. Hopefully it took. To keep her from coming in I shut the door.
The living room was empty. More boxes assembled, stacked, some labeled, some taped shut, some with their flaps open.
A hallway on my left. Three rooms. All the doors open. The first, on the right, a bathroom. No boxes inside. The shower curtain hung from a rod, shoved back, revealing the empty tub.
The next, on my left, what looked like a sewing room, the curtains drawn over the windows creating a dimly lit hub for crafts and craft making materials littered all about. I could recall Mr. Pederson wearing sweaters, vaguely I could drum up the memory of his stating they were home made and would’ve been easier tasks for his mother to complete if her boy had been a mite smaller both belly and height wise.
The last room in the hall was on the right.
Nearing it I could see through the doorway, see more sunlight entering
this room than any of the others.
On both nightstands bordering the bed were more gnomes. A herd. A gaggle. A murder.
The gnome nearest the bed crouched down, face wrenched to merriment, hand clasped to knee like he was slapping it, other hand pointing like he’d just seen his best friend or brother slip and fall or perhaps miscalculate the swing of an axe and instead of splitting a woodblock had sunk the sharp edge into a shin.
Ropes winched taut around bedposts encircled Maddy’s wrists.
She was wide eyed. A slab of silvery duct tape covered her mouth.
I jumped on the bed. I rained kisses on Maddy. Her face, her hair.
“Are you all right? Are you all right?” asking her the same question a million times it seemed. She grunted. It sounded like ‘get the tape off’.
It seemed to take forever to work the tape up enough there was an edge to grab hold of. I yanked it off.
Maddy made a face and then exhaled.
“I have to pee.” Her voice rasped.
“What?”
“I have to pee. Really bad.”
I looked around like there’d be a knife, there’d be something right there next to the bed perfect for slicing through rope.
“Sherman!” I yelled. “Sherman!”
I didn’t want to leave Maddy. If I got up just to look in the kitchen for a knife it felt for certain I’d return, implement in hand, only to find her vanished.
No response from Sherman. He must’ve been in the basement. I got off the bed.
“I’ll look in the kitchen. I’ll go look. I’ll be right back.”
Maddy nodded.
I ran out of the room and started up the hall. And stopped.
The front door to the house was open.
Light spilled in, jabbing a blade of white intensity into the gloom.
At the other end of the hall, in silhouette, 6 feet and 4 inches and 200 plus pounds of imposing silhouette, stood Mr. Pederson.
Chapter 52
He’d thought he could wait until the last period of the day. His planning period. That’d be the perfect time to go and check on her.
On his Madeline.
Every teacher skipped out during planning now and then. They were supposed to remain on the school grounds during their planning period. But Mr. Manring constantly ‘forgot’ papers and ran home to get them…a few fingers of whiskey rolling down his throat prior to the return trip. And Mr. Willeford had used his planning periods to conduct an affair with a housewife and mother of one of his students. Conveniently, her house located at the other end of the block shared with the school.
It was a proud tradition.
Mr. Pederson found he couldn’t wait. He had too many questions.
She’d seemed confused and scared. Scared of him. It didn’t make sense. He couldn’t concentrate. 7th period was farther and farther away.
He’d theorized. Maybe there was an internal head wound. Maybe she’d been roughed up before he’d rescued her from Corley, the others. She might need to see a doctor. That could be arranged.
When she’d been his student, and they’d staged Romeo and Juliet, he’d told her she could play either title character, so malleable were her talents.
He would harness it here in reality.
Take her to Ashmond or the Tri-Cities, disguise her someway beforehand.
Cut her hair.
Put some glasses on her.
That chameleon aspect had never been utilized to its fullest capability on film, not even in the horrendous Panda. The cinematographer on that disaster had made her look atrocious. Somehow he’d handicapped her beauty. It was a wonder. It was like removing the rings from Saturn. Seemingly impossible and then it was fact.
He knew the man’s name, knew it wouldn’t take all that much effort to find his home, inflict upon him what he inflicted upon precious Madeline. He’d considered the action, but never pursued it.
His patience had reaped rewards.
It was supposed to be perfect. Now it was supposed to be perfect, but she’d resisted him. Screamed when he’d touched her at the house out on Jennings. Screamed when he’d crushed the little man in the basement with his bare hands. Screamed at sight of the dead bus driver in the living room. Acted as though she had no idea what he was doing or why, didn’t care when he explained how he’d seen Corley out in the fields, too near the McCall house a month ago. How the two men had chatted and Corley told Pederson he was out testing some hunting equipment. A lie. Pederson knew right away. Pederson spent his life gauging truth and lies. Lies of his siblings. His students. His wife. His mewling waste of a son.
He’d kept his eye on Corley.
Seen the red Jeep parked out at the little house not far from Madeline’s uncle’s place. It was of a piece. Matters about Madeline. He was always hypersensitive to anything related to Madeline. Pieces always floating near the surface, but as the visit approached the surface, his every waking thought was Madeline, like one of those photographs of a face that’s actually composed of thousands of smaller photos, like the president’s visage formed from headshots of dead servicemen and servicewomen.
He’d nearly run her off the road Saturday. Headed out to the woods and then the cabin he had almost taken her before she was taken. Something stopped him. Thank god. It would’ve been a mistake. What actually happened was much better. Mythical. Movielike. To allow her to be taken and then to save her, rescue her, kill her kidnappers one after the next, it was brave. Heroic. He couldn’t have scripted it better himself.
But she’d denied vehemently again and again his insistence that they’d corresponded these last few years.
He had the letters.
Hers.
Dozens. Straight from Hollywood.
Printed, yes, but signed in her hand. Her lovely hand, how he’d anticipated it running down his chest, through the curly black hairs, and down the barrel of his belly, and then, deliciously, down even further.
Before leaving the house this morning, before either Lois or Perry could’ve possibly been awake, he’d opened the safe in his office, removed the letters and placed them inside his briefcase.
The proof. The proof might jog free whatever blot had settled upon Madeline’s memory, dissipate the cloud, the madness thrust upon her by the kidnappers.
Coughing up a storm, enacting a stuffed nose, he informed Mrs. Collar that he was headed home. Someone would have to cover 6th period.
Driving to Mother’s, he hoped Madeline would be less hostile.
When she’d screamed, it’d troubled him to no end to punch her in the stomach. He’d had to. Neighbors might hear.
Those idiots. Those three holding her at the house on Jennings. They’d done something to her. Hit her in the head or scared her so badly she no longer could discern friend from foe, lover from enemy.
He’d held back and hadn’t dissolved to tears in the aftermath of striking her. Not until he’d properly bound her to the bed, slapped the duct tape over her mouth, and fled, fled before the first crystalline drop slid down his cheek.
He had the letters. He had them. She’d understand. She’d remember.
He parked in the driveway. The neighbors now so used to seeing his car parked there or pulling into the garage. It was a shame how his mother’s descent into senility had quickened these last few months.
But it was a guiding hand that had made that happen.
Like Madeline getting taken. It was awful. He couldn’t believe such monsters existed as would take her, but then the universe placed checks and balances as needed.
Mr. Pederson had been the balance.
He’d found her. Killed the men. Shot two, but he’d enjoyed the last bit the most. Almost, though not quite as much as he’d enjoyed his interaction with Nick Verney on Friday.
Vengeance. He was an agent
of vengeance.
Parking the car, getting out and shutting the driver side door, he laughed. He’d left the briefcase on the front passenger seat. Shaking his head he opened the door and grabbed it, smiling at the foible. A marker. A forerunner perhaps of the senility waiting to roll over him in the years to come. If that was to be then every moment he got to share with Madeline in the present was the more precious.
He wanted to sneak up on Madeline. He could wait for her to wake up if she was sleeping. Sleep had to be good for her, all the stresses thrown at her over the last few days.
There was no screen door to contend with on the front porch. He slid the key in and turned the knob softly. For such a large man, he’d acquired and honed an ability to sneak here and there, tiptoe, like Sunday night. Leaving the house to go out to the country, to hike up the ravine to the house where he suspected Madeline would be held. Lois and Perry had no idea when he’d left, or when he’d returned, successful, exultant.
The shout from the back of the house terrified him.
Then the dog. Barking. He couldn’t tell if the dog was inside or out.
But it was clear his presence was known. Just as well.
Mr. Pederson steeled himself.
His fingers squeezed the briefcase handle. He’d fling it. Or use it as a bludgeon. Whatever seemed necessary, whatever foe appeared at the end of the hall.
He was surprised at sight of Madeline’s sister.
Surprised and delighted.
And then saddened.
He hoped it wouldn’t come to it, but if Lucy, sweet, horse faced Lucy, gave him no choice other than to break her beneath the full force of his fingers, then fate would have it.
Chapter 53
I waited for someone to call after Mr. Pederson. Change the atmosphere of our stand off. Set me in motion.
I’d stood, frozen, and watched him walk out of view, and heard the front door close, saw the slash of light vanish.
I couldn’t move. Locked in the same damn spot when he walked back into view.
“Hello, Lucy.”
I thought about diving back into the bedroom. Trying to lock the door, brace it. I imagined his fists would break through the door with little effort.
The bathroom was probably the only door with a lock. That wouldn’t do me any good. I might get in there, but that would leave Maddy out here with him.
“The cops are on their way,” I said. “So is Dina.”