He thought about it for a moment. He was miserable, and the teachers never seemed to punish Jeffrey Perry for the things that he did because they never caught him doing anything. John’s stomach was hurting and he didn’t want to go to school – he just wanted it all to be over. So he’d have to perform a favor – big deal. The spell probably wouldn’t work anyway, but it was worth a shot.
He uttered the words to the spell, inserting Jeffrey Perry’s name where it indicated, “say enemy’s name here”, and then he closed the book. He didn’t feel any tingle, or see any apparition or lightning – nothing. He went back down stairs, depressed.
The next morning, he went to school, dreading his next encounter with Jeffrey Perry. Instead, in homeroom, Jeffrey was missing. Jeffrey Perry was absent. John felt better than he had in weeks. Maybe that spell had done something. John was even more elated when Jeffrey didn’t show up for the next two days.
On Monday of the following week, the teacher looked sad. There were school counselors in their homeroom class and John wondered what was up. Once roll call was over, the teacher made an announcement.
“Class, I have some sad news. You may have noticed that Jeffrey Perry wasn’t in class for half of last week. He was sick and had to go to the hospital. Unfortunately, the doctor’s couldn’t help him get better, and over the weekend...”
The teacher began to choke up. She blew her nose in a tissue and wiped the tears away from the corners of her eyes before continuing.
“Over the weekend, he died.”
* * * * *
John walked home from the bus stop in quiet celebration. His enemy had been vanquished, all because of a little spell. He suddenly felt invincible. The feeling was euphoric. He felt a little bad that Jeffrey was dead and all, but he felt so good that he wouldn’t be bullied anymore that it was hard to dwell on the not-so-good feeling for long. Besides, he thought, think of all of the other kids who will no longer be bullied. John had done them a favor. They should be thanking him.
A few weeks passed, and life moved on. Jeffrey Perry became a memory of the past, and life was good again. Then, late one night, John woke up to the sound of a book falling off of his desk. When he looked over at his desk, he saw something. It looked like smoke at first. Then, slowly, it began to form into a shape that resembled a human form. He was about to scream but, when he opened his mouth, nothing came out. Then, he heard a voice inside of his head.
Don’t be afraid, John. It’s only me. I’m the one who helped you with Jeffrey. I’ve come to ask you to do me a favor.
John didn’t move. The smoke continued to take shape until he saw a small, skeleton-thin creature with pale, pupil-less eyes.
You do want to do me a favor, don’t you, John?
John still couldn’t speak, so he just nodded his head up and down.
Your neighbor has a cat – you know the one. I want you to find the antifreeze in your father’s garage, and put it in a bowl near the back side of your neighbor’s fence, where the cat comes through to hunt for birds in your yard. Can you do that for me, John?
Again, he nodded, unable to speak.
Good. Do that, and you will have fulfilled your commitment to me.
The smoke faded away, and the voice didn’t speak again. John still couldn’t speak. He was terrified. All the next day, he thought about what had happened. The thought of telling his dad about everything crossed his mind, but then he would be confessing to being an accomplice in the death of Jeffrey Perry. Who knew what would happen then? He might even go to jail. No. It was only a cat. He could do this.
The next day, he took one of the old cereal bowls that they never used any more to the garage, putting the antifreeze in it and doing as he had been told, and then he waited. The cat eventually came through, the way he often did in the afternoon, and finding the antifreeze, he drank it up. After the cat left, John rinsed out the bowl and put it in the dishwasher.
For the next week, he waited anxiously to hear something about the neighbor’s cat. Then, one night at dinner, his dad mentioned that the neighbor’s cat had died. John waited for the other shoe to drop. He waited to be asked if he had killed the cat. For the next several days he waited on pins and needles for the police to show up and take him away. After a week, he began to calm down. He had done it. He had committed the perfect crime and gotten away with it. The small twinge of guilt that he had felt at the beginning gave way to a feeling of power and accomplishment. And that... that was the beginning of the long road to perdition for John Fitzgerald Robbins.
Chapter Seven
The lobby of the Westward Look Grand Resort and Spa was designed in classic Southwestern style. The large fireplace at the far end of the lobby was flanked by two long, overstuffed couches, and a western-pattern rug ran the length of the lobby between them. The ceiling even boasted exposed log beams, giving the lobby an authentically rustic feel.
Jimmy had arrived a few minutes early, expecting the good doctor to be ready precisely at 7:00 p.m. No sooner had he deposited himself on one of the couches than Dr. June Carlson entered the lobby, followed by Cowgirl and two others. Dr. Carlson extended her hand towards Jimmy as he got up from the couch.
“Thank you for coming, Mr. O’Conner.”
“Please, call me Jimmy,” he replied, shaking her hand.
“Jimmy, this is my husband, Doctor Frank Carlson. You’ve already met Angel,” she said as she waved a hand in Angel’s direction.
“How do you do, Jimmy? I can’t begin to thank you for what you did today. You saved Angel’s life,” Mr. Carlson said as he shook Jimmy’s hand firmly.
“It was nothin’ any concerned citizen wouldn’t have done.”
“I think you put too much faith in the general population, but I’m just thankful you were there and rose to the occasion,” Mr. Carlson replied.
“Thank you, Mr. O’Conner, for saving my life,” Angel responded after receiving the cue from her mother to speak.
Jimmy put his hands on his knees as he leaned down to see eye-to-eye with Angel.
“You are most welcome, little girl. I’m glad to see you up and around.”
“And this is Celeste, our au pair,” Mrs. Carlson said, as she continued with the introductions.
“How do you do, Mr. O’Conner?” Celeste replied, with a heavy French accent.
“Pleased to meet you, miss.”
“After today’s episode at the park, the CEO of St. Mary’s loaned us Celeste for the rest of our stay, so that we can always have an extra pair of eyes on Angel,” June explained. “Well, let’s all get in the car, shall we? We have a reservation and we don’t want to be late.”
* * * * *
After a twenty minute car ride in the Carlsons’ SUV, they arrived at Bob’s Steak and Chop House, where they were promptly seated. Jimmy had been happy to see they weren’t going to some exotic restaurant. His palate was accustomed to a steady diet of red meat, and a steak house was just the ticket. He ordered the prime ribeye with mashed potatoes and a side of glazed carrots.
“So, you don’t sound like you’re from around here, Mr. O’Conner. Where do you hail from?” Mr. Carlson queried.
“I’m from Chicago. I’m just out here to visit my sister.”
“How long are you planning to stay?” June asked.
Jimmy fidgeted a bit in his seat. He didn’t like being questioned, and especially when the answer to the question was personal. He decided to be polite and answer the question anyway.
“I don’t know. My sister is sick. They say she won’t live long without a heart transplant, so I’ll be here until whatever happens happens.”
“Oh... I’m sorry to hear that. I didn’t mean to...”
“Don’t worry about it,” Jimmy interrupted, anxious to move on to another topic. “From the sounds of it, you aren’t from here, either. What brings your family to Tucson?”
“Well, we’re out here for
a medical symposium at St. Mary’s. We decided to make it a family vacation of sorts, so we brought Angel along with us. The conference ends on Friday, and then we’ll be flying back East to Baltimore,” Mr. Carlson explained.
Several more minutes of polite exchange followed, and then the meal finally arrived. It didn’t disappoint. At one point, Jimmy even asked the waitress if there were any plans to open a Bob’s Steak and Chop House in Chicago. Throughout the evening, Jimmy often wondered about the two messages he had received which had set the events in motion leading to this moment. He wondered if his sister’s life would really be saved as a result of his actions to save this little girl – and if so, how that could be. He repeatedly pushed the thoughts out of his mind and tried to enjoy the rest of his meal.
* * * * *
The next morning, Jimmy arrived at the hospital shortly before 9:00 a.m. By the time he parked and made it to his sister’s room, it was 9:15. The door was cracked open, and he pushed the door open a bit more to see if Sarah was awake. There was a man dressed in black with his back to the door; he had a book in his hand, and was reading out loud to Sarah. From the words he was reading, Jimmy could tell he was reading from the Bible – the story of Lazarus. The priest was just getting to the part of the story where Jesus visited the tomb where his friend Lazarus had been buried. In this part of the dialogue, Jesus was speaking to Lazarus’ sister, Martha. Jimmy waited at the door for him to finish reading.
Jesus said to her, “I am the resurrection and the life. The one who believes in me will live, even though they die; and whoever lives by believing in me will never die. Do you believe this?”
...
When he had said this, Jesus called in a loud voice, “Lazarus, come out!”
The dead man came out, his hands and feet wrapped with strips of linen, and a cloth around his face. Jesus said to them, “Take off the grave clothes and let him go.”
Jimmy felt a catch in his throat. The story had hit too close to home and he could feel his eyes starting to tear up. “That’s beautiful,” he said, forcing himself to step into the room to get past the emotion of the moment.
“Hi, Jimmy,” his sister said as the man who’d been reading turned around to face him. Jimmy could see he was a priest or a minister of some sort from the collar on the shirt that he wore.
“Hello, I’m Reverend Baldwin. I’m one of the chaplains here at St. Mary’s,” he said as he extended his hand to Jimmy.
“I’m Jimmy,” he replied, shaking the reverend’s hand.
The reverend turned back around to Sarah. “Sarah, I just wanted to read that to you and let you know that God cares about you. We’ve asked Him to heal you and be with you during this time of trial. Now you can trust that He will work on your behalf, and do what is best for you.”
“Thank you, Reverend,” Sarah responded.
“Well, I’ll leave you two alone. It was nice to meet you, Jimmy.”
“Likewise.”
The reverend exited the room, and Jimmy leaned down and gave his sister a hug.
“How are you doing today, sis?”
“I’m good Jimmy. Really good. I’m at peace with it all.”
“Well, I’m not. I don’t like it one bit. Sittin’ around here and waitin’ for a heart donor that may not show up in time. I wish there was somethin’ I could do to help.”
Sarah took Jimmy’s hand in hers before insisting, “You are helping, Jimmy, just by being here. None of us lives forever, Jimmy. I just know when I’m going, that’s all.”
“Let’s talk about something else. I brought you somethin’,” he said as he held up a large gift bag. He placed it on the hospital tray that slid over the top of the bed and pushed it gently up to where she could reach it.
“What is it, Jimmy?” she asked as she tilted it over and took a peek inside. Jimmy said nothing as he waited. Sarah pushed back the white tissue and saw a thin, black case. She pulled it out to discover a DVD entitled I Love Lucy’s Greatest Episodes.
“Oh, Jimmy, this is great!”
“There’s a portable DVD player in the bottom of the bag. I remember how you always used to laugh at these and thought we could watch a few episodes together.”
“That’d be great, Jimmy,” she responded.
Jimmy set up the DVD player on the portable tray and they watched the entire disc together, pausing only when the nurses came in to check on Sarah’s vital signs. It was good to hear Sarah laugh. In one episode, Lucy had taken a job at a chocolate factory and wasn’t able to package the chocolates fast enough. Instead, she tried to stuff all of them into her mouth to keep them from piling up on the conveyor belt. He thought Sarah might hurt herself, she laughed so hard. The nurse even came in to see if she was alright.
When the last episode ended, he put the DVD player on the nightstand beside Sarah’s bed and got up to leave. He leaned down and gave her another hug, kissing her on the top of her head.
“I’ll see you some time tonight, before the end of the visiting hours.”
“O.k., Jimmy, that’ll be nice.”
He paused at the door, his back turned to her as he spoke.
“You know. I never really thought about dyin’ too much. I mean, when Mom died... it was so sudden. I didn’t have time to think about it much. But this... this is different. Now I’m wondering what really does happen... when somebody dies and all.... Is it like the Reverend says? Do you go on livin’, just in a different place?”
He turned and looked at Sarah, who was looking back at him.
“Is that what you think, Sarah?”
She paused for a moment, before she responded.
“I believe in what the Reverend said today, in that story he read. Yeah, Jimmy, I believe we go on living. If we believe....”
He nodded, letting her response sink in.
“I want to believe, Sarah... I just don’t know if I do.”
Without waiting for a reply, he turned and walked out the door.
Chapter Eight
It was near lunch time, but Jimmy wasn’t hungry. He went back to his hotel and worked out for an hour in the gym, and then took a few laps in the pool before heading back up to his room to take a shower. He got dressed to go out, but then couldn’t decide what he wanted to do. The events of the day before kept playing over and over in his mind like a news reel – especially the part where he’d found the dead body of Dwayne Baxter slumped over the coffee table. He wondered if they were reporting it on the news channels yet.
He grabbed the remote and turned on the television, flipping through the stations until he came across KOLD News on channel 13, the local CBS affiliate. The talking head was just about to launch into the latest news updates when suddenly the screen went haywire with static.
“What’s going on?” Jimmy asked out loud. He clicked the channel change button on the remote to see if he could find another local news channel. Instead, the next channel displayed a solid white screen with black letters on it that read:
Jimmy, the girl is still in danger. She likes to swim.
“What the....” He stared at the screen, dumbfounded. He took out his cell phone and took a picture of the screen. He wanted proof that what he was seeing actually existed, and that he wasn’t, in fact, going crazy. Once he took the picture, he looked down at the image on his phone, half expecting that the words he had just seen wouldn’t be there, but there they were. The message was clear, and obviously intended for him.
He hit the power button on the television and the screen went black. He sat on the bed for several seconds, staring at the image on his phone and trying to process what he was seeing. If Angel was still in danger, then maybe the guy he had seen leaving Dwayne’s house wasn’t finished tying up loose ends. Maybe he thought Angelica Carlson had seen too much, so she needed to be silenced, too.
She likes to swim. That had to be a clue to where the killer might try and strike again. Jimmy remembere
d seeing a swimming pool at the Carlsons’ resort hotel the night before. He jumped up from the bed and headed out the door.
* * * * *
It was already over one hundred degrees, the sun baking everything that dared poke its head out of the air-conditioned confines of the hotel. They had watched television in the Carlsons’ suite for the better part of two hours, and Angel was bored. For that matter, Celeste was bored. Swimming would be just the thing.
The pair finished changing into their swimsuits and began the long trek down the halls to the outdoor swimming pool on the back side of the hotel. It was the middle of the day on Wednesday, and the pool was appropriately deserted. Most of the other resort inhabitants were either eating lunch inside or trying to avoid the mid-day heat in other locations. So much the better, Celeste thought to herself. Angel could swim, and she could read her book and work on her tan. She wanted to be the envy of her college campus when she arrived back in France next term – all freshly bronzed, courtesy of the Arizona sun.
Angel had brought along a set of diving sticks to entertain herself – six-inch long tubes that were weighted on one end but stood straight up once they sank to the bottom of the pool. Celeste watched her throw them into the pool, then swim to the bottom and retrieve them one at a time. After the first few repetitions of this ritual, Celeste turned her attention to her book.
Ten minutes passed, and the pressure on her bladder reminded Celeste that she had forgotten to relieve herself before they came down to the pool. She looked around and spied a unisex/family bathroom near the entrance back into the hotel.
“Angel,” she called as the little girl was preparing to throw the diving sticks back into the pool for yet another run, “I am going to the restroom. I will be right back, o.k.?”
“O.k.,” the little girl responded without looking up.
From behind a copse of small trees and shrubbery, a malevolent smile appeared on John Fitzgerald Robbins’ face. This was too good of an opportunity to pass up. No one else was out at the pool. The way the pool was laid out, the corner of the pool where the ladder was positioned was farthest away from the hotel entrance, and closest to the trees and shrubbery that had been concealing him – a perfect location for what he had in mind.