Dead Man Falls (8 page)

That doesn’t apply to me, of course, although I suspect my own college-going kids think I had sex twice in my life--otherwise they wouldn’t be here--and have been celibate as a nun ever since, doubly so since I divorced their father. Unfortunately, it wasn’t far from the truth.

On that happy note, I grabbed Mother’s copy of my senior yearbook off the shelf and headed for the kitchen table.

Now, as unpleasant as it may be, I really must explain about the yearbook. You see, Kickapoo’s school colors are--and always have been--red and white. In all the years since the beginning of time, the yearbook covers have only been red, white, and an occasional silver or gold--except for my senior year. The color that year was, well, ocher, which is Latin for really ugly yellow.

That, of course, was bad enough, but a screw-up at the printer made things much worse. Instead of a tasteful solid orange sun blazing across the bottom half of the book, we got only a thin ugly zigzag outline. No one was amused--no one.

I’d like to say that I didn’t have anything to do with any of it, but I’d be lying, which in this case I would happily do except that the words "Yearbook Editor" are printed in nice bold letters beneath a picture with my face in it.

To be fair, the theory behind the yellow and orange sunrise/sunset theme was pretty good--we even won a trophy at a university workshop for the concept and design. The idea was that since our class would be the last to graduate from the old building--which was built about the same time as the Alamo--we should do something special and different to commemorate the historic event--thus the dramatic sun concept. Possessed by a manic burst of creativity, we cleverly added a written theme: This is not the end, this is not the beginning of the end, but the end of a new beginning. All I can say is that it seemed like a good idea at the time. Now, I sort of wish I could burn it. And I don’t know that many alumni would disagree with me.

When the first copies hit the halls, nobody was smiling and there were serious rumblings about a lynching--mine. So, the improperly pigmented yearbook might have been a reason why someone would want to kill me. But that was twenty-five years ago and I’d been seventeen, for crying out loud. What did that have to do with now?

When I moseyed back into the kitchen with the book, Jerry was already sitting at the table and Mother was busy fixing us all a glass of iced tea. I sat down on the side next to Mr. Sheriff and flipped open the yellow tome to the senior class pictures. "No cracks about the cover, okay?"

"It was a good idea--"

"Don’t bother." I jabbed my finger at the page. "We need to find what might link any of us with Calvin."

"I thought about that on the drive out," Jerry said, turning to the deceased's senior picture. "I can’t come up with anything."

Calvin Holt’s semi-smiling face with the thick black-rimmed glasses perched atop a hawkish nose graced the same page as mine. Holt, Jackson, Lamar. Three to a page with high school accomplishments and honors listed beneath each photo. While the other two seniors had a dozen or more listings each, Calvin Holt had only two notable accomplishments: Tech Ed and Photography Club. I felt like crying for him. How awful his high school years must have been--and I’d never noticed.

Jerry glanced at me and then at Mother, who was setting glasses of iced tea on the table for us. "Miz Jackson, I know I mentioned it earlier, but what is said here can’t be discussed elsewhere. Understood?"

Lucille sat down across from us and clicked her nails on the table. "I won’t say a word to anybody." She paused then added, "Including my best friends in the whole world. That would be Merline Campbell and Agnes Riddles, you know."

"Yes, ma’am, I do know. You are not to tell your friends anything about this." Jerry took a sip of tea from the glass. "I wanted you to go over this with us since you might remember some details from that time period that Jolene and I don’t."

"I’ll be happy to help," Lucille said, sweetly and obligingly. "Where do we start?"

The enthusiasm twinkling in my mother’s eyes did not cheer me. Lucille loves to be in the middle of everything and that is never a good thing. She considers the July fiasco one of the highlights of her life. I wish I could forget the entire month. We have very different ideas of what is fun.

She leaned forward and tapped a long claw on the page. "Now why do you suppose that Holt boy was holding these?"

Jerry shot me a quick glance. "You didn’t tell her about the marks on the pages?"

Lucille caught on quickly. "Marks? What marks?"

"Some of the pages had circles," I said. "Some had other things."

"As you can see," Jerry said, pointing to my the page. "Calvin Holt’s picture is on the same page as Jolene’s."

"Yes, I see. Is that why you were worried about her?"

"Partly. Calvin’s photo had an X through it," Jerry said, running his finger across the picture.

Lucille nodded. "Oh, right. Like the killer marked him off the list. Makes sense."

"Jolene’s had a red circle around it."

Lucille gasped. "Just what do you mean Jolene’s picture was marked up?" Then she turned on me. "Why didn’t you tell me this on the way out here?"

"Because we don’t know exactly what it means, Mother," I said, thinking we should have just kept Lucille’s inquiring mind out of this. Since he’d sent us down this merry trail, I played it out. "Jerry’s picture had a circle around it too. So did some other people’s. It could just be the killer trying to point the finger at one of us." I said it, but I didn’t believe it. Nobody in the room believed it. "Who knows."

"Well,
I
know!" Lucille shoved herself away from the table and began pacing the length of the cabinets. "Murdering crazies everywhere," she muttered. "The Holt boy’s all marked out and you two are circled up to be killed next. Well, I’ll tell you, I’m just not going to have it." She waggled a finger at Jerry. "You get that blond detective boy on the phone. I’ve got a thing or two to say to him."

"Miz Jackson," Jerry said. "Detective Rankin is doing everything he can right now. He’s checking out every single person on every page that was found, but it’s going to take some time. That’s why we’re sitting here now, trying to help him with anything we can remember."

She paced a little more, then sat down and gulped the rest of her tea. "Who else was marked up? I can’t sort through these things without all the facts."

"I hate to admit it, Jerry, but after I saw your picture circled, I kind of zoned out on everything else. I really don’t know who else was there either."

He flipped back a page and pointed to a guy who was the closest thing to a hippie Kickapoo High ever had, not that he got away with long hair or dressing slouchy. Still, he had a "look" about him. I think it was mostly the "Hey, man, peace, cool," talk and the marijuana haze, but it was enough to make him seem "really out there" to those of us who thought being radical meant wearing POW bracelets and bell-bottoms.

"Russell Clements," Jerry said, tapping his finger on the photo of the shaggy-haired boy with pimples. "He was circled as well."

I hadn’t thought of him in years either, until today. "He hasn’t changed much," I said. "Except that his hair is half gray and longer now. As long as mine, in fact."

Jerry looked up and cocked a dark brow in my direction. "You saw Russell? Today?"

I nodded. "Yeah, I was following Mother through the crowd and he stopped me. Wanted to tell me all about his new girlfriend and his new improved self. I didn’t really have time to chat."

"How did he seem?"

I shrugged. "Same old Russell, except he didn’t look high or anything that I could tell. He acted a little nervous, but I figured it was just me. I have that effect on people sometimes." Especially on people who think I should go make nice with Rhonda. "It’s a gift."

Jerry grinned. "You can be pretty scary."

Yeah, I could, and probably was, but I did not want to hear about Rhonda--the slutty or the saintly version--and he probably sensed it. "He was just overly chatty. I don’t know why." No, I really didn’t. "I guess it could have been from drugs, but I don’t know about those things. And I really didn’t pay that much attention. I just wanted to get away."

Jerry rubbed his chin and thought about that for a few minutes. "Russell’s been busted for possession and petty theft about a dozen times since high school, but nothing in the last few years that I know about. He lives in a trailer out at his dad’s pipe yard."

"What direction are we heading here, Jerry?"

"Any one that connects to us or Calvin Holt. We need a common denominator."

Lucille did a little "tsk, tsk," then said, "You really ought not get snippy with Jerry Don, Jolene. He’s only trying to get at the facts. We need to be helpful, not snotty."

I shot Miss Helpful-and-Considerate a little glare. She was the last one to be casting stones about helping out law officials. It took at least three interrogations for Dirty Harriet to come clean on her withheld information two months ago when it was darned important that she do so. And I wasn’t even withholding any information--unless you counted avoiding talk about Rhonda. But maybe she was the common denominator. She was sure the lowest one I could think of.

Lucille tapped her inch-long purple nails on the butcher block Formica tabletop and frowned thoughtfully. "Now, Jerry Don, was there anyone else with marks by their pictures?"

My, my, but Miz Helpful was piling it on pretty deep. I was tempted to tell her so, but I kind of wanted to hear the answer to her question too.

Jerry turned to the staff section and pointed to a dark-haired man with a cocky smile. "I can’t believe you didn’t notice this page in the group, Jolene."

Me either. "Oh, geez. Pollock?" Rhonda had a strong competitor for the bottom-of-the-heap award now. "Pollock, really?"

Jerry nodded. "Afraid so."

With my no-longer-teenage eyes, I could clearly see that the man in the photo looked to be about forty, give or take a few years. It was also quite clear that I could have lived my whole life without ever seeing that particular face again. Yes, it was "The Pervert," otherwise known as my former high school principal, who’d had an eye--and hands and lips--for seventeen-year-olds, namely me.

His official name was Willard Pollock, and naturally he preferred to be called Will. I preferred to call him Willies--as in "gives me the"--but only behind his back because saying it to his face would have been rude. It would also have been the equivalent of waving a red flag at a bull since pretty much anything I said to him was immediately misconstrued as a come-on, and Willie moved fast.

I suppose I still harbored a little bit of resentment for his ruining my senior year, but to be fair, I’d done a pretty good job of making his life miserable as well. He deserved worse, of course, but I did what I could. Having one of the top students, grade-wise and otherwise, feel it worth the risk to sneak a "Fire the Pervert" editorial into the school newspaper couldn’t have been a real career booster. I didn’t sign my name and I never confessed, but everybody knew I’d done it just the same--including Pollock.

After that, he kept close tabs on my every move--and grade--operating on the "guilty until proven innocent" program. It was not pleasant, trust me, and I couldn’t get too worked up over Willie Boy being on the hit list. In fact, a few rolls of yellow cord and a dip in the river seemed darned fair, considering.

I grabbed my glass of tea and chugged down half of it, trying to quench my evil thoughts. "So how does Pollock fit in?"

"I don’t know that he does, for certain," Jerry said with a shrug. "But this page was there with the others. No circles on it though."

Lucille clicked her acrylic nails in a rhythmic little thumpity-thump, the pecks getting harder and harder. "Somebody should have castrated that horned toad long ago, or at the very least, arrested him. If Jolene," she paused to scowl at me for emphasis, "had told me what was going on, I’d have done it myself--after I’d broken both of his nasty little hands. And do you know that not one single person from that school called to tell me what was going on? Not a single one. Not a teacher, not the superintendent, not a single man on the school board, and that’s all that was the on the board then, you know, men, which I suppose explains that." She huffed and scowled. "It’s just pitiful what they let happen up there."

Lucille stopped just shy of saying it was an awful school, which was the natural extrapolation. The school wasn’t completely awful. In fact, I’d had some really good teachers, exceptional ones that I will never ever forget and deeply appreciate to this day. I’d also had some that were beyond bad.

Long before my editorial about the lecherous principal, I’d made an unfortunate discovery about a certain English teacher. Mrs. Sharon Addleman did make an effort to show up for class at least three days a week, but she didn’t exactly do any teaching. She’d tell us to read a chapter out of the textbook--condensed versions of literature, sort of--and answer the questions at the end. We did this every single day. Well, being a good student, I did as I was told--for a while. Then, I became either bored or suspicious, maybe both, about her reading and grading habits. That she spent her class time drooling at the front of the room while she read romance novels might have factored into my suspicions just a tad as well.

Not smart enough to shut up and take an easy A, I came up with a clever and amusing plan. One day, I started the assignment correctly, like the good little girl I was--and am. Then, about halfway through, my evil twin leaped forward and added a little essay on how Mrs. Addleman wasn’t reading any of the assignments because she was busy imagining herself the heroine of a hot romance novel, but I knew I’d get an A on this paper anyway. I did. And then I squealed.

Brilliant plan, that. The teacher got in trouble and I had to work for my A’s--work hard--for the rest of the year, including writing some lovely lengthy reports that were assigned to the whole class for my benefit. Several non-literary classmates made homicidal threats over the deal, but they seemed to get over it toward the end of the year, mostly.