Dead Man Falls (33 page)

"You may be right," Jerry said. "But let’s hold off on that particular humanitarian mission until we’re sure he’s not involved in any of this."

Good point. Or was it? Pollock was the one who had kidnapped my mother, not Harley.

Jerry hung a right onto Pecan Avenue a few blocks before we got to the school. If I remembered correctly, Mulberry was next, then Bois d’Arc. None of these "tree" streets were paved. A few of the main streets in Kickapoo had asphalt, a few more had tar and gravel. Most, like these, just had gravel.

The houses were small, frame types, probably built in the late forties or fifties, with pier and beam foundations and small front porches. Most were painted white, but there was one lilac-colored house along with several yellows, a pink, and a very unpleasant green. The yards were fairly well kept for the most part, but a lot of the structures were showing their age.

The travelogue and house appraising had calmed me some, but now that we were seconds away from facing Pollock, my nerves jumped into alert mode again. "I’d feel better if we had a plan."

"That’s why I headed down this way. We’ll turn and circle around to the far end of the school and get a feel for the situation."

"Why don’t we just charge in?" And shoot him. "Catch him off guard?"

"I think we have a better chance by playing straight. If he gets scared, he’s liable to do something stupid."

"Like hurt my mother."

Jerry parked south and west of the school, stopping just out of view. "Make the call."

I ran my fingers through my hair, then grabbed my cell phone and dialed. I didn’t have much time to think of what I’d say as Willard Pollock picked up on the second ring.

"Hello, Jolene," Pollock said, his voice lilting up in that same old cocky way it had years ago.

I shuddered. "I want to talk to my mother."

"It’s been a long time," he said, ignoring my demand. "Your mother tells me you look the same as you did in high school. I can’t wait to see for myself. I think we had a bond, don't you?"

I felt my lip curl, but I couldn’t stop it any more than I could stop the bile creeping up into my throat. As my mother would say, leopards do not change their spots, and the pervert certainly hadn’t changed his. "Why did you take my mother?"

"You make it sound like a kidnapping, Jolene." He chuckled, a loose rattling sound. "I didn’t take her. I just asked her to show me around a little. But I’m keeping my hands to myself, if that’s what you’re worried about."

My hands started to shake and I gritted my teeth.

"At a loss for words, Jolene?" he asked, with a wheezy cackle. "That’s not like you at all."

Somewhere in the midst of thinking of ways to kill him--slow and painful options mostly--it occurred to me that he was pushing my buttons on purpose. And I was letting him do it. That made me even madder--but at myself. I took a deep breath and held it to the count of eight. "Where are you now, Mr. Pollock?" My voice was firm and professional. No nonsense and no fear.

"Well, Miss Jackson," he replied in mock formality. "We’ve been driving around for a while, taking in the scenery. Sure are a lot of big houses out on the Bowman City Highway. Amazing growth. Kickapoo proper has stayed about the same though."

"When and where, Pollock?" I said, cutting to the chase. "I want my mother back."

He stopped laughing and turned serious. "I’ll be at the school in half an hour, by the old front door, where the main office used to be."
Click.

I relayed the information to Jerry, then added my opinion that he was lying through his teeth. "He’s already at the school. Mother as much as said so on the phone."

"He doesn’t get thirty minutes." Jerry picked up his radio and called Leroy. Leroy was maybe seven to eight minutes away, so Jerry told him where we’d be going in. If anything looked suspicious he was to call Rick.

My phone rang in my hand and I jumped, sucking in a breath. Very cool move. I glanced at Jerry and he nodded for me to answer. I did. And sure enough, it was Pollock again.

"Don’t make this into a big show, Jolene. Tell Jerry Don to keep his deputies away. All I want to do is talk. When you two get in the school, I’ll let Lucille go. Had enough of her anyway."

Click.

I leaned back against the seat and rubbed my hands across my face. "He said he’ll let Mother go once we are inside the school. He also said for you to keep your deputies away. Says he just wants to talk."

Jerry shifted the car into gear. "Then let’s get him talking."

Within seconds we pulled up in front of our old high school.

The Kickapoo campus was a sprawling conglomeration of buildings of varying vintage, set back from the road about fifty yards. The general layout had the original brick structure in the center with the first addition--a sixties upgrade for the elementary school, new cafeteria and gym--attached on the right. The new high school was on the left. Our class was the last to graduate from the old building--hence the yellow yearbook debacle--so I had no history with the new place.

There was also another change on which I had not been consulted, specifically the replacing of the letters HIGH with MIDDLE on the old building. "Great, we’ve been demoted to Junior High. Oh, excuse me, Middle School. Who thought
that
up anyway?" I said, trying to keep myself from panicking over walking into the building, whatever it might now be called.

The north end of the campus was now clearly the hub of the school and there was only one car parked in front of the old part where we were headed. A shiny red coupe with a Cadillac emblem on the back sat directly in front of the sidewalk leading to the front door.

"Pollock’s car," Jerry said.

I too had seen the bright red Caddy the second we pulled up. "Yeah, that looks like his style."

Jerry eased up beside the Cadillac. "It certainly fits the man we used to know," he said, peering inside. "I don’t see anything out of the ordinary."

My thoughts immediately went to the trunk. Ordinary was a matter of perspective these days, and we had no way of knowing which version of that Pollock's trunk fit into--spare tire and jack or dead body. Shaking away
that
thought, I pointed up ahead to the front door, one side of which was propped open. "I assume that’s our welcome mat. I hope there aren’t any kids or teachers around."

"Probably not at this time of day. Maybe a janitor." Jerry nodded to my waist on the far side. "Chamber a round and put the gun on safety. Don’t worry about shooting someone you shouldn’t, you won’t. You probably won’t even need it, but it’s better to be prepared."

Me? Prepared? Armed? Shoot someone I shouldn’t? "Um, Jerry, I’m not so sure--"

"Backup’s on the way," he said matter-of-factly. "This is just a precaution. Now, unsnap the holster and slide the pistol out."

Backup was Leroy and that wasn’t much comfort. Rather than dwell on that, I just did what I was told. I held the pistol in my lap, released the safety, pulled back the slide and chambered a round, then flipped the safety back up and re-holstered the pistol. I had practiced flipping the safety off with my thumb so I knew I could do it quickly--or could when there wasn't nothing riding on it, like life and death. "Okay, I’m ready."

We climbed out of the truck and closed the doors, but we did not race for the building.

"He could pick us off from the window if he wanted to," I said, still standing by the car.

"He could have shot us in the car if he’d wanted to."

Good point. "So, what do we do?"

"I don’t see a choice," Jerry said matter-of-factly. "There’s only one way up to that office. We go in the open door."

I sucked in a deep breath and stared the top floor office just above the door. "He’s at the window."

"Yes."

"I can’t see Mother."

"She’s okay, Jolene. We’ll get her out of there."

Yes, we would. Whether Pollock came out alive was a separate issue. I glanced back up at the tall window and saw movement as Pollock put his nose to the window. He waved and ended it with a little kissy pucker. "Did you see what he did? Did you see that? I’m going to kill him. Right now."

"Jolene, stop it. You’re giving him exactly what he wants--a reaction. Don’t," Jerry said as we neared the building. "You've got to keep your head."

Easy for Mr. Trained Sheriff to say. But I knew he was right. Jumping like a trained seal at Pollock's juvenile baiting made me both predictable and ineffective, to say the least. "I can do this," I said, as much to myself as to Jerry as we took the last few steps to the front of the school.

Jerry stopped at the open door, below the window, where Pollock couldn’t see us. He glanced inside and whispered. "You remember the basic layout?"

I nodded.

"What about when we get upstairs?"

Yeah, that part I knew only too well. Pollock's office had been at the very top of the stairs next to the library. I'd had a variety of unpleasant moments--not to mention photographic reminders--to cement those memories. "I'm good."

"Just take it easy, Jolene. Everything Pollock's done points to a need to explain himself. He wants to tell us why he’s doing what he’s doing."

Yeah, killers had emotional need too. "We're walking into some kind of trap, Jerry, and you know it."

"If there was another way, I'd be doing it. He wants something, no doubt about that, and you're the key. It's going to be okay. Leroy will be here in a few minutes."

Jerry's faith in the cavalry--i.e. Leroy Harper--was considerably stronger than mine. "Maybe we should put a note on the door for him. Something like: We’re upstairs with a crazy man--save us, but be sneaky."

Jerry sighed and shook his head. "Stay behind me," he said, stepping through the door.

Even without Pollock lurking upstairs to kill us, walking into my old high school was like walking into my old teenage traumatic history. Having Jerry again beside me made it surreal.

There had been some updating done to the interior, but all in all it looked pretty much as it had in the seventies. A new ramp for wheelchair access had been added just inside the door next to the same old short set of stairs. The heavy doors hadn’t been modified with any automatic openers that I could see, but I supposed they’d sort of complied with the access regulation.

Just to the left was what used to be the district superintendent’s office. The sign now read "Counselor," which was definitely different since all our counseling back then had been done with a large wooden paddle. A few more steps and we were in the center of a wide hallway, brown lockers lining each side as far as you could see. My mind went blank for a second and my heart pounded. The lockers. Yes, I’d been terrified of the double rows of lockers that went up and down the hall as far as you could see. I spent the first few weeks of every year in a state of perpetual anxiety, afraid I wouldn't remember the number of my locker, the combination of the lock or even where the stupid thing was located. I’d had nightmares about it--opening the wrong one, searching and searching for my things, people laughing. Oh, yeah, I was glad to be back here for so many reasons.

I blinked away my adolescent anxieties and looked at the place for what it really was--a small school. Very small compared to the mega-schools my own children were forced to endure. At the time, however, this place had been very large and very scary. A wistful moment swept over me. Yes, there had been bad times here, but for the most part, I’d had a very sheltered and idyllic school life--one my kids had never known and few would ever know again.

"It’s clear, Jolene," Jerry said, breaking into my thoughts. "I’ll go up the stairs first. Stay to the side behind me."

I nodded and followed him across the foyer. The wide staircase went up halfway to a landing then turned back on itself. At the top of the stairs you could turn left into the library or go straight into the principal’s office. Pollock’s old office--where he was holed up now, where I’d started off my senior year as his office assistant and would-be play thing, if he'd had his way. That thought, along with the fact that my mother was up there right now in a worse situation, made me want to skip the foreplay, race on up the stairs and shoot the bastard. "Fine," I muttered.

Jerry and I walked up the stairs, scanning behind us, below us and at the overlook above. When we reached the top of the stairs, we stayed to the side, out of direct line of sight of the office doors. The outer office looked unoccupied but the second door stood open, giving us a partial view of the old principal’s office. I hadn’t gotten a real good look, but I’d seen a heavy wood desk positioned in front of the window, facing the door--the same way it had been for the fateful photo shoot.

The library doors directly to the left were closed, but Jerry made a quick check of them anyway then worked his way to the outer office door. After a few seconds and a wave of his hand, I followed. I was just stepping up beside Jerry when Pollock appeared in front of us.

"Just like old times, huh?" He laughed at his own wit, then leaned a hand on the doorframe and grinned. "They sure fucked up the offices though."

I was stunned. Yeah, his language had definitely slapped me across the face, but it was actually seeing him that was the real hit.

He looked even older than he had in the picture with Red White. Oh, no doubt about his identity, but the years had drawn heavy lines across his face, and his hair had thinned and turned snow white. He was still, however, a snappy dresser. He stood maybe five-seven and wore a navy blue sport coat with a white knit shirt beneath, dark denim jeans, black sport loafers, flashy gold watch and ring, and that same old "I’m hot stuff" attitude.

"You’re staring, Jolene," Pollock said, chuckling a little. "I may look like shit, honey, but you look better than ever." He winked. "Knew you would."

Breathe, Jolene, breathe.
"Where’s my mother?"

Pollock ignored me and extended his hand to Jerry. "Good to see you, Sheriff Parker."

Jerry nodded, but did not reach to shake hands, and when I looked closer, I saw why. He had his gun pointed at Pollock’s chest. "Where’s Miz Jackson?"