The talk show had been replaced by some Hollywood gossip show. The dark shape in the flickering shadows of the TV moved. A thick, sleepy voice said, “Who’s that?”
Kevin froze, blood coagulating into ice.
“Who is that?” the voice asked again.
“Just uh, looking for Jerm,” he croaked, staring at the stained carpet.
“He ain’t here. He’s at school.” A spark from a lighter. “You’ll find him there.”
Kevin smelled sweet and sour smoke, like burning rotten fruit. He said, “Okay.”
The shape held her breath. Exhaled. “Be a sugar on the way out and make sure you close that screen door. Bangs when the wind blows if you don’t click it just right. Drives me fucking nuts.”
“Okay, sure, no problem,” Kevin said, already through the doorway. He shut the door with a solid click, pushed against it to confirm the door handle had engaged the doorframe. He started down the steps. He had no idea where he was headed next. It didn’t matter. He was too relieved to care.
He’d figure it out on his bike, once he was long gone.
A pair of hands so white they may have been wearing bleached latex gloves lunged out of the darkness under the trailer and yanked him off his feet. He tried to scrabble backward, but one of the hands closed over his shoe. Jerm’s gray face swam into view. “What… Why are you here?” His voice sounded garbled, like his tongue was swollen.
“I… I…” Kevin couldn’t form words, let alone explain himself.
Jerm didn’t act like he heard anything anyway. His head lolled around on a loose neck, like it was too heavy to hold upright and still. Something was different about his face, but he kept it pulled back from the light, so Kevin couldn’t get a good look. He kept talking, mostly to himself. “Thought I shot you at school already. Wanted everybody to see it.”
Kevin tried to pull his foot back, but the movement caught Jerm’s attention. “Fuck are you doing here?” Jerm nearly shouted, yanking him deeper under the trailer. He leaned over Kevin, and in the dim light, Kevin could see that Jerm’s skin had broken out even worse than usual. Much worse. Sticky-looking blackheads had exploded across his face, lining every crease and fold in the puffy skin. Jerm curled his lips back, revealing yellow teeth and a black tongue. His nostrils were plugged completely with solid-looking gray snot. And his eyes. Something was wrong with his eyes.
They bulged unnaturally, as though reacting to some uncomfortable inner pressure. Tiny gray buds were growing out of his eye sockets, near the inner corners, pushing the eyeballs out of the way. Kevin got the distinct impression that Jerm was looking in two different directions at once, and it was confusing the hell out of him.
“Thought I shot you already,” Jerm repeated. He reached down and when he pulled his hand back up into the faint light, Kevin could see Jerm was now holding his mom’s Smith & Wesson. Jerm clicked the hammer back and it sounded so loud in the cramped, dusty shadows under the trailer that Kevin was worried his bladder might give out.
Kevin flopped flat on his back and kicked out frantically with his free foot, driving his heel into Jerm’s chin and nose. The sole of his sneaker smashed against the blackheads, popping the ripe mounds, releasing a stinking black paste. Jerm grunted and let go of his other foot.
Kevin twisted and scrabbled toward the sunlight. He had nearly reached the edge of the shadows when he felt, rather than heard, some explosion behind him, and at the same time, a sledgehammer came down on the back of his head and darkness overtook him and he knew no more.
CHAPTER 15
The Fitzgimmons were expecting Sandy. The front gate was wide open. She’d been toying with the idea of running along on a code 10-39, which meant full lights and siren, letting everybody know they needed to get the hell out of the way. Then, when she got closer, she could switch to a 10-40, running silent without lights and the siren. Sandy changed her mind because with the Fitzgimmons, sneaking in unannounced might be a good way to get shot. It was better to give them as much advance warning as possible.
Still, they wouldn’t have been able to get the gate open in time if they were just now hearing the siren. They knew she was coming and were ready. She slowed to a more respectable speed and turned off the siren.
When she got closer she saw that the tow truck from the garage where Axel worked was hooked up to a white pickup. The back end was off the ground, and Sandy could see large ruts in the driveway where the pickup had tried to drive away. The pickup had a USDA logo on the door; the back was enclosed with multipurpose storage compartments, almost like something the vet drove around to ranches when he was checking on large animals. The driver was still inside the cab, waving frantically at her.
Edgar sat on the hood of the pickup; Axel was behind the wheel of the tow truck. Purcell was standing off in the shade of the oak trees. Sandy shut off the engine and climbed out, trying not to make it obvious she was looking around for Charlie. Purcell’s truck was parked over by the barn, so Charlie had to be around somewhere.
Purcell stepped out of the shade and took his time meandering across the driveway.
Sandy stepped over to the pickup, said to the man inside, “Sir, would you mind stepping out of the vehicle?”
“You tell these psychos to unhook me and I’ll think about it.” He looked to be in his fifties, with a neatly trimmed gray beard. His eyes had narrowed and he jabbed his finger in random directions to punctuate his words. “Fact is, I’ll feel a whole lot better when you arrest all of them. You get them facedown on the ground in handcuffs and then I’ll get out.”
Sandy turned to Purcell, who had gotten close enough to speak with. “Purcell. I’d been hoping I wouldn’t have to be back here in a professional capacity so soon.”
“Chief.” Purcell gave her a nod in greeting.
“What’s the problem?”
“What we have here, I suppose you could say, is a failure of communication. Charlie caught this man trespassing, so we decided to hang onto him until the proper authorities showed up.”
“I see. Did you call us?”
“Nah. Didn’t see any point. Fella in there told us he was calling the cops a buncha times, so I figured that’d kill two birds, one stone and all that. And I knew you folks were busy with the funeral.”
Sandy resisted the urge to tell him it wasn’t a funeral.
The guy from the USDA shouted through the windshield, “What are you waiting for? Arrest them!”
Sandy tried to open the passenger door. It was locked. “Sir, it would be much easier if you would just step out of the vehicle and we can all discuss this.”
“You know what they threatened to do to me? Do you have any idea of the kind of filth that comes out of their mouth?”
“We don’t put up with trespassers on my property,” Purcell said. “You’re awful damn fortunate we didn’t just shoot you first, then call the chief.”
Sandy asked Purcell, “You say Charlie found him? Whereabouts?”
“Up in the north field.”
“We have to take samples if you want to be certified,” the USDA guy yelled. “What is wrong with you?”
Sandy and Purcell ignored him. She asked, “Any chance Charlie’s around? Like to talk to him.”
“He’s busy. He can talk later, if need be.”
“I’d like to talk to him now.”
Purcell hesitated. Sandy stepped closer, lowered her voice so the USDA guy in the pickup couldn’t hear. “You and your boys are in some awfully deep hot water here. You want my help, you get Charlie out here now.”
Purcell put two fingers to his lips and gave a whistle that scared crows into the air at two hundred yards. Sandy figured her ears would be ringing until evening. It wasn’t so much that she needed to interview Charlie immediately, but she wanted him in her sights so he wasn’t sneaking up behind her again.