Hallowed (26 page)

Twenty minutes into the ride, I figured out where we were headed, and forty minutes later, we reached the Graves’ family camp out on Douglas Lake.  The last time me or my mother had been here was over three years ago.  There was a time when we’d come here as a family once or twice a year to swim, fish, or just get away.  Now Dad only made it out here to deer hunt maybe once every couple of years.

The camp was an unremarkable little two room shanty obscured by live oaks.  A single unnamed dirt road wound up from another unmarked road off of Highway 98.  The lake was little used even during the season, and the closest neighbor was too far away to be heard.  No electricity.  No phone.  No running water.

To Dad it was his little slice of Heaven away from Haven.

There was a single cruiser in front of the cabin and two officers wandering around outside.  Whatever was going on was serious enough to warrant leaving me and my mother’s cars parked at the school and the bank respectively.  Deputy Nick went over to confer with the other officers.

“Oh yeah,” Claudia murmured dreamily as she stepped out of the police cruiser.  She and Mrs. Wicke had been to the camp a few times over the years.

Mom threw open the front screen door and stumbled out with a garbage bag in her hand.  “Oh God,” she exclaimed when she saw Mrs. Wicke and Claudia.  “I didn’t realize anybody’d be here so soon.”  She dropped the bag, rushed up to me and gave me a fierce hug.  “This place is in shambles, but I keep asking myself why I expect anything less than that when the housekeeping is left up to your father.”

Mrs. Wicke stepped over to Mom.  “Kathy, do you know what’s going on?”

A look passed between Deputy Nick and Mom as the other two officers started back to their car.  “He’s on his way down the road right now, Mrs. Graves.  I’ll be over by the car if you need anything.”

“Why don’t you all come inside while I finish chasing the dust-lions out?”

We followed Mom inside the interior of the camp which was basically a large kitchen/gathering space.  The only other two rooms were bedrooms in name only.  Our father being something of a packrat, the family’s discarded bed frames and mattresses (along with other miscellaneous furniture) had managed to make it here in lieu of the garbage dump where they belonged.  Call it thriftiness or laziness; it all amounted to the same thing.

There were cobwebs everywhere.  The two windows were open in an attempt to drive the stale air out, but it still smelled of petroleum and death.  Petroleum because of the gasoline-powered generator I knew was somewhere out of sight, along with a decomposing animal rotting not far away, possibly beneath the floor on which we stood.

Wearing her most tolerant face, Mrs. Wicke attempted to make the best of it, but Claudia was visibly disturbed.  “Okay, I can’t stay here if that’s the idea.”  She turned to my mother.  “That
is
the idea isn’t it?”

“There must be a very good reason for all this,” she responded, glancing over at me.  “I’ve never known your father to be an overly reactionary man.”

It was then that we heard the arrival of vehicles outside.

We stepped out to see Dad talking to Deputy Nick beside his truck as the other cruiser started away behind them.  “Are you sure, Jack?  I can hang around here and...”

“No, get back to your wife, Nick.  I can take it from here.  Thanks again.”  Deputy Nick gave a wave over his shoulder to us and started down the road after the other cruiser.

When Dad turned to us, the first thing I thought was that he looked like he had just run a mile at full speed.  His hair was more disheveled than I’m used to seeing it, his face was pale, and his eyes were red and puffy.  My father looked completely exhausted, both physically and emotionally.

“Now before everyone starts ripping me to shreds, I want you to know that we don’t have to stay here.  I just wanted us to be somewhere other than our respective houses if just for tonight,” he announced, reaching down through the open passenger window of the truck and taking out his brief bag from where it sat on the seat.  “After we discuss this, Pat, you and Claudia can decide what you want to do from here.”

He passed me the bag and withdrew a sheet of paper, which appeared to be a photocopy of a handwritten letter.  He leaned against the side of the car and everyone gathered around him as he held it up for everyone to see.

“This was delivered to the editor-in-chief of the Austin American Statesman this morning demanding that they print it on the front page of tomorrow’s newspaper.”  Claudia gave me a significant look.  I knew what she was thinking, of course.  Zodiac.  “The editor in chief used good sense in turning the original and its envelope over to us immediately.  I’m going to read it to you now.”

Taking a deep breath, he began to read:

“To Whom This May Concern:

Of the Coming, do not ask the reason for the season.

I am, was, and will always be here.

Look. You will find me within.

There is no Allah.  No Great Spirit or Yahweh.

There is only LEGION.

We hunger for your children.

Each will be extinguished like a Wicke.

You have prepared their Graves.

ALLAHU AKBAR.”

“And it was signed simply with the name, ‘Gabriel.’”

Claudia and I glanced at each other significantly.  The horn.  The archangel.

Finally, it was Claudia who broke the silence, “So?  He thinks he’s the Zodiac.  What does this have to do with us?”

“The letter was mostly handwritten in block letters with a few words of newsprint glued here and there with no apparent pattern,” he continued, “Except two words.”

He handed the photocopy to Mom and the rest of us looked over her shoulder, while he pointed the portion in question.

“The first is the last word of the last sentence of body of the letter, which reads, ‘You have prepared their Graves.’  Not only is the word Graves capitalized, but enough of the newspaper page was cut that it reveals a page number in the lower right hand corner.  The word and the number exactly matches the name taken from an article from the October 15
th
Austin American Statesman.  This article was titled, ‘Investigators Grasping at Straws’ in reaction to Sadie Nayar’s body being found.”

“Among other things this article talks about my cooperation in the investigation.  The killer, in using this particular clipping, is announcing that he knows that I’m involved.  Of course, this has been common knowledge for weeks.”

Claudia gently pulled the letter closer, squinted at the copy, then took a step away from the group.

Looking up at Claudia in concern, Dad said, “The last word of the second to the last sentence is also capitalized and purposely misspelled.”

Mrs. Wicke gasped and drew a quivering hand to her lips.

“We’re not sure which source the name was drawn from, but where it came from is not as important as the fact that it’s in this letter at all.”

“What does this mean, Jack?” Mrs. Wicke asked almost breathlessly.

“He’s announcing that he knows who we are,” Claudia answered.

Mrs. Wicke looked from her daughter to Dad.  He nodded to her.

“How..?” Mrs. Wicke began, then her eyes glazed over and she began to fold a little, before Mom and Dad grabbed her between them.

I watched Claudia’s eyes slowly glaze over.  She stared off into space and hummed, doing those mental calculations that made her blind and deaf to the world around her.  “He either knows us or has been following us,” she finally said.

Mrs. Wicke stared at Claudia with a sort of shocked awe.  “Well, we can’t go back.  We can’t go back to Haven.”

Mom and Dad looked at each other.  There was some non-verbal communication going on there that years of marriage had honed.

“Dad, what about Uncle Hank?”

“I’ve already let him know where we were going.”

I waited for a few moments and when he offered nothing further: “Dad?  Is he coming?”

“You know your Uncle, Paul,” Dad answered through gritted teeth.  “He said he didn’t want to abandon his flock.”

“His f-flock?” I stammered.  “We’re his family!”

“Paul, when are you going to learn that the Church is your Uncle’s family,” Dad snapped.  “Not us.”

“It’s Thursday and the weekly shipment is coming into Comeaux’s.”

Claudia looked at me with surprise and gave a snort of derisive laughter.  The glare I shot her sobered her up quick.

“Don’t worry about that, Paul,” Dad responded.  “I’ll give Bill a call.”

Claudia snuck a look at me.  Again her face crumbled into amusement.

“I don’t know what could be so damn funny,” I snapped, starting away from her toward the cabin. “We all just got a collective death threat and you’re tickled pink.”

She shook her head.  “It’s all so absurd, isn’t it?  You just have to laugh.”

The other three pairs of eyes trained themselves on her.  Not one of us seemed capable of wringing the least bit of humor from the situation.

We did our best to get the place cleaned up, but in the end, we just had to tolerate the situation.  At least for tonight, this was our home and we had to find a way to deal with it.

I think the first question on everyone’s mind was what we were going to do for food.  It was at that point that Dad revealed the three boxes of pizza and two coolers in his truck; one containing drinks (three six packs of soda, one six pack of beer, and a bottle of both red and white wine), and the other containing eggs and bacon and O.J. for breakfast tomorrow.  (I had to believe that Mom was lurking somewhere behind these preparations.)

We all sat down together on the table set out in the back screened-in patio area overlooking the lake and Mrs. Wicke led us in a brief blessing thanking God for our health and asking for continued protection.

After she’d concluded, I heard myself murmur just loud enough to hear: “Deliver us from evil.”  Everyone gave an “amen,” and Dad gave me an extra look of interest.

Dad ended up opening the white wine, because Mom muttered something about how red was supposed to be served at room temperature.  (I caught Claudia smirking again, but she was able to keep her laughter to herself this time.)  He poured Mom and Mrs. Wicke both a plastic cupful and opened a beer for himself.  I held my plastic cup out to him, and he gave me a brief look of appraisal before pouring half a cup of wine.

“Hey, what is this?  The boy gets alcohol but the girl doesn’t!  This is sexism, y’know!”

Dad gave Mrs. Wicke a single questioning lift of his brows.

Mrs. Wicke sighed and gave in.  “Fine, Claudia. Half a cup.”  She nodded to Dad.

Dad picked up the bottle of wine, and Claudia started to hold her cup out but stopped short.  “I’d rather have a beer actually.”

That one took Mrs. Wicke a little by surprise.  Dad smirked and again looked to her.  She simply shrugged.  “If it’s okay with the former Sheriff, it’s okay with me.”

“I’ll allow you one beer in exchange for a night in county lockup to be named in the future,” Dad said with a straight face.

Claudia dug one out of the cooler and cracked it open with a smug look in my direction.  We all watched and waited for the face as she took her first sip but her expression never changed.

Mrs. Wicke gave her a stern look of understanding after everyone else had turned their attention back to the pizza.  Her expression softened and cocked her head at her daughter.

“Your father never drank wine either.”

Mom put a hand to her mouth to conceal the smile that erupted around her mouthful of pizza.  “He could put them away, too.”

Mrs. Wicke and Mom shared a laugh so similar you’d have thought they were sisters.  Dad just ignored them.

“What, he get wasted a lot?” Claudia asked with a chuckle.

Mrs. Wicke considered.  “I wouldn’t say a lot.”

“Did he get mean when he was drunk?” Claudia then asked, trying to look casual though the enthusiasm of her words had already given her away.

“No, never.”  Mrs. Wicke started to take another bite then said instead, “Once, I thought he was going to seriously hurt this other guy at a party, but I don’t think it had anything to do with how much he had to drink.”

“What happened?” I asked.

“One of his co-workers down at the body shop, Yorbie Johnson, accused him of setting himself up to be a hero,” Mrs. Wicke answered.  “Said that he, Jack, and Hank must have had something to do with that kidnapping to know exactly where to find that girl.”  She settled back in her chair, contemplating the wine glass in her hand.  “He told Yorbie that he didn’t care what he said about him but that he should take back what he said about Jack and Hank.  Yorbie just laughed at him.  The next thing I knew, Ronnie was standing over Yorbie, who was lying on the floor holding his nose.  Two of his friends were holding him back but if I hadn’t got in there between them, I think your father might have spent the weekend in jail.”

Everyone looked a little shocked, except Claudia.  She had the wide-eyed look of someone who had just sampled a particularly interesting flavor they’d never tried before.  She leaned slightly forward with a look of satisfaction and nodded for her mother to continue.

“I’ve never seen him like that before or after,” Mrs. Wicke explained to her daughter.  “Your father wore a mask of toughness to hide his sensitivity, but he wasn’t a violent man.”

“I remember hearing about that from Dennis and Jimmy,” Dad offered.

“Was he friends with Uncle Hank, Dad?”

“No more than passing acquaintances at school as far as I know.”

“Then why would he have done that,” Claudia asked, “for a stranger?”

“We weren’t strangers.  We just weren’t friends.”

Everyone just waited for some sort of explanation, but instead, Dad finished his beer and stood up.  “I’m going to take a walk around outside.”

I threw my chair back and started after him.  “I want to come.”

“No, you stay here.”  He stopped just short of saying “with the women,” but it was a near miss.

For not having a television or anything other than the textbooks in my backpack, I figured we were in for a very long night.  Turns out, there was life before cable television and computers.

Dad brought out a deck of cards from the truck and we played Texas Hold-Em until after ten o’clock that night.  Though, I’m sure there were more important things for the lead investigator of an on-going serial murder case to be doing than playing cards, my father just wanted to be with his family.  He needed to be.