Hallowed Page 24

  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?”

&nbs
p; 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.”

  “You ever regret becoming celibate?”

  I stared at Claudia with a frozen expression of shock, eventually coming to my senses enough to attempt an awkward apology. “Claudia,” I snapped.

  “It’s fine, Paul,” he assured me. “I get asked that one more often than you’d think, and the answer is ‘no,’ though…” His expression turned serious for a moment. “I have always had one regret.” He gave Claudia a gentle smile and tagged me on the leg. “That I never had the experience of being a father. I think I would have liked that.”

  Then before either of us could ask any other questions, he moved off in a different direction. “Y’know, this was originally your grandfather’s place, and it’ll be yours after we’re gone to leave to your sons and daughters. Don’t make the mistake of letting it go. A place of retreat is good for the soul.”

  “Dad said that you weren’t coming,” I said.

  “That’s not what I told him,” Hank replied, his gentle smile hardening around the edges. “I just wasn’t coming in the time he wanted me to come. For a detective, your father can be very impatient.”

  Claudia gazed at Uncle Hank with curiosity. “Did he tell you? About the letter?”

  “Oh that. Yeah, he told me.”

  “But you decided to stay an extra day?” she said with a bit of wonder.

  “There’s nothing that another human being can do to me that will make me forget my responsibilities,” he responded with a patient smile that he reserved for the children he taught in catechism class and for those he accepted as non-believers. There was a sort of sadness in that smile that seemed to convey the disappointment he felt at not being able to share the knowledge, the wisdom that filled him. “Claudia, there is only one thing I truly fear in this world: Separation from my Lord and Savior.”

  From everyone’s reaction as we pulled up, his arrival wasn’t as complete a surprise as it had been t
o us. Dad rushed out with a genuine smile.

  “They just called us from the highway,” he told Uncle Hank.

  “Yeah, quite the welcoming party you’ve got back there. They looked ready to shoot me until I showed them ID. Guess the collar wasn’t enough for them.”

  Uncle Hank took my father’s hand with his right and with his left gripped his shoulder. His body language sought an embrace but my father simply looked embarrassed. Instead, Uncle Hank shared a few whispered words with him and went inside to give Mom and Mrs. Wicke hugs.

  A few moments later, he stood out on the steps of the porch, gazing out at the lake longingly. Inconspicuously, I took a seat at the table and watched as Dad handed him his copy of the letter. Uncle Hank read through it only once in silence before handing it back to Dad.

  “Did you catch the caps on Graves and Wicke?”

  Hank didn’t answer right away. Standing there, his head cocked to one side and staring out at the lake, he looked eerily like Claudia listening to the music of the spheres.

  “You think this is about your investigation of the murders?”

  “Well, of course I do, Hank,” he said contemptuously. Dad stepped around him in the attempt to face him, but Uncle Hank was at the far end of porch and Dad teetered at the edge of the steps, deciding on whether he should go down or not. Finally, he just stood there beside him, pretending to be patient out of sheer spite.

  “There’s another possibility, y’know.”

  Though I sat there at the table behind them, I had some trouble hearing them as they were facing the wrong direction. I rose and stepped around to the side, out of their line of sight.

  “Maybe the reference is to a different Wicke than Claudia.”

  “Pat?”

  “Ronnie.”

  Dad reacted as if he had just been given to a kick to the shin, with pained surprise and something akin to revulsion at a sudden unprovoked attack.

  “Pardon?”

  “Graves could be a reference to either of us, Jack?”