He threw the book against the cell wall and cursed the stupidity that brought him to this. Then he lay back on his bunk and listened to the shouts and the laughter of children at afterschool play somewhere nearby.
Children were playing outdoors after school everywhere, taking advantage of the warming weather and the lengthening days. As they were playing in Montgomery County, Maryland, so they were playing down in the Tidewater lowlands of Virginia. A few were even playing in places their parents had warned them time and again not to go, areas pocked by mud-filled sinkholes capable of sucking a body into oblivion as fast as a rock would sink to the bottom of a pond.
When something went down in a Tidewater sinkhole, usually it stayed down. Occasionally, however, as flesh decayed and gas built up in body cavities, a carcass would return to the surface, if ever so briefly. The turkey vultures indigenous to the area made the sinkhole region a regular stop on their scavenging tours because more days than not, the remains of some hapless animal would be available for lunch. If there was a little mud with the meat, no matter. The birds’ physiologies could tell the difference, keeping what their bodies needed and excreting the rest.
On this sunny afternoon, two youngsters, ages seven and nine, roamed farther from home than they realized, so engrossed were they in their game of cowboy and Indian. Suddenly the younger one, whose name was Isaac, realized where they were.
“Pauly, we’re not supposed to be here,” he shouted at his friend. “This is where the stinkholes are.”
“Yeah,” agreed Pauly, his eyes wide with wonder. “There’s a big one right over there. Let’s go look.”
“No-o-o!” Isaac objected. “My mama would whup me. We gotta go home.”
“Oh, come on, or are you a scaredy-cat? There’s a buzzard over there eatin’ on somethin’. Let’s see what it is. We won’t get close, or are you afraid I’ll push you in?”
“Oh, Pauly. I don’t wanna go.”
“Then I’m gonna go alone and I’ll tell ever’body Isaac’s an old scaredy-cat.”
Little Isaac made rocking motions, like he wanted to go forward with his friend but he didn’t want to, either. He watched in terror as Pauly got closer.
“Be careful, Pauly,” he shouted.
The vulture in Pauly’s view looked up with its blood-red eyes, then lowered its red head again, correctly assessing the boy as no threat.
Pauly could hear a kind of ripping, slopping sound as the big bird tore at its meal, and his eyes widened in a horror so great it would consume his sleep for months to come.
“Isaac! Isaac! C-c-co-ome here! Quick!”
There was little visible above the surface of the mud, only a head and one grotesquely curled hand. The bird was standing on the head. The eyes were gone, and the holes were filled with mud. The nose was a bloody stump; the vulture had finished off most of it as an appetizer since it was the most prominent feature. The flesh of one cheek was gone, too, and the bird had gone to work on the other, ducking its head to tear away meat and exposing the skull, which gleamed white against the rusty brown of the muddy, untouched places.
“Isa-a-a-ac!” Pauly was about to wet himself, and he grabbed at his crotch to try to stop it. “Isaac! Isa-a-a-ac!”
“Wassa matter with you, Pauly?” his friend asked, so unexpectedly close behind him that the larger boy started in fright. “It’s just a dummy.” The little boy began to chant: “Pauly’s a-scared of a du-u-ummy. Pauly’s a-scared of a du-u-ummy.”
“It’s not a dummy, Isaac,” Pauly insisted in a fear-choked voice so low that Isaac had to strain to hear. “Dummies don’t bleed.”
Isaac looked at his friend, and then he looked closer at the spectacle in the sinkhole. As they watched, the great vulture spread its wings to their full six-foot span and seemed to levitate from the ripped head before it glided directly at the two young spectators.
The boys looked at each other with identical wide-eyed, terror-filled expressions, then turned and ran like hell for home.
50
“If I woke you, I don’t apologize. This is Harold Marshall.”
Pace had been in a REM sleep cycle, deep in a dream interrupted by the jarring jangle of his telephone. He fumbled for the instrument, fighting not to lose the thread of his fantasy, and thought he mumbled hello. When he heard the identity of his caller, the dream was lost instantly.
“Yes, Senator, I’ve been trying to reach you.”
“I didn’t wish to be reached.”
“Then why did you call?”
“To tell you I plan to ask the Senate Ethics Committee for an opportunity to appear before it to answer all questions I deem fit at the earliest possible date. I will request the hearing be public. Then I will leave my fate to Providence.”
“Why would you volunteer to appear?”
“I know a lot of people detest me, Mr. Pace. I am blunt, sometimes condescending, occasionally obnoxious. I have a very short fuse, as your colleague Mr. Brennan can attest. But I am an honest man, and I am loyal. Perhaps in these past weeks, my loyalty has strained propriety, but I don’t apologize. I did what I believed I had to do.”
“When will you make your request to appear?” Pace asked. He was scribbling notes as fast as he could write on a pad he kept on his nightstand.
“Today, although I don’t know when or if the committee will deem such an appearance appropriate. I plan no announcement. I wanted to tell you myself before you found it out from one of the back-stabbers with whom you run.”
“I don’t run with back-stabbers, Senator. I deal with forthright, honest people who feel wrongs have been done.”
“They’re back-stabbers from my point of view.”
“I’m sorry you feel that way, but I understand.”
“No, you don’t. You don’t understand anything, Mr. Pace. Nothing at all.”
And the line went dead.
Pace replaced the receiver and reached over to turn off his alarm. He wouldn’t need it; there would be no more sleep this morning.
“That was certainly something.” Kathy’s husky voice stated the obvious.
“It sure was.”
“What did he say, or is it privileged?”
Pace smiled at her and stroked her face. “Not privileged. Your boss is about to hear from him. He wants a hearing before the Ethics Committee. He wants it public.”
“No kidding?” Kathy propped herself up on her left elbow, and the sheet dropped away from her, exposing part of her right breast.
“No kidding,” Pace said as he reached over to cup the exposed flesh. “And, thanks to him, we have an extra hour to ourselves this morning.” He bent to kiss her.
“Oh, no,” she said, pulling back. “This isn’t the movies, dear boy. There will be no kissing before mouthwash.”
He fell back on his pillow. “Hey, kid, wanna share the same glass?”
“You are so naughty.” She giggled and left their bed for the bathroom.
At the office several hours later, Pace got an urgent phone call from Clay Helm. “Sometimes we’re too lucky to live,” the police captain said. “The courts were about to kick Davis free for lack of charges, but the fates were on our side.”