The paper hadn’t arrived yet, so Lucas sat on the porch and waited. When the paperwoman’s VW pulled into Lucas’s dirt driveway, Fluffy ran toward the noisy car. “Damn,” Lucas said in disappointment when the VW missed the dog, but the close call caused Fluffy to run whimpering under the trailer.
Lucas turned on the porch light and skimmed through the rehash of old news from the murder of two nights before. He had retrieved another cup of coffee before he read the editorial. It was about the murders. It was about how it was time for the Teal County Sheriff’s Department to do something about them. Hadn’t over a month passed since Detective Anderson said he was close to making an arrest?
Lucas threw the paper down, as he had done the morning before, and said harshly to the empty landscape before him, “You screwed up, Lucas. Big time.” At the sound of Lucas’s voice, Fluffy appeared and peed on the paper.
Just as he bent and kicked at Fluffy, Lucas heard a whistling by his left ear, followed immediately by a thud from the trailer wall behind him. He immediately recognized what was happening. He’d heard that whistling once before. He fell face down on the plywood floor of his porch and covered his head. Fluffy yelped and began licking Lucas’s face happily.
Lucas grabbed the dog and threw her off the side of the porch, then he followed her just as another thud sounded behind him.
The dog, excited at the prospect of unexpected play, followed Lucas as he rounded the trailer. Lucas curled behind the concrete-block supports and rubbed under Fluffy’s snout. When ten minutes had passed, Lucas knew it was over. This man, or child, or whoever was shooting at him, wouldn’t wait around. Lucas knew that.
Lucas grabbed the dog’s head and held her still. “I can’t believe I’m saying this, but, Gnat, you are one hell of a dog.”
Lucas was in his office staring at the blackboard full of names, just as he’d done for two years. Before this morning, he’d felt depressed as he studied the constantly reordered information that had gotten him nowhere.
Now he was angry, and that troubled him. The anger should have come simply because innocent citizens were being murdered. Hadn’t he said in his interview with the Georgia Police Academy ten years ago that he wanted to be a law enforcement officer because of his deep concern for his fellow citizens? Yet before the attempt on his own life, he’d felt nothing but depression about his own diminishing reputation. He should have been angry, he told himself, that such things as these murders could happen.
Lucas shook his head. “Maybe you’re human after all,” he said to the empty room.
He ran a hand through his hair and shook his head again, and then concluded aloud, “So if you’re angry, use it.”
When Tammi had mentioned the kids, Lucas had felt a slight click. It wasn’t an “aha,” but it was enough to act on.
Teal County wasn’t New York City or Houston or San Francisco. There were no gangs or cults. Kids here didn’t kill their parents.
But...
He thought of Joe Coulter.
Lucas had been to a seminar in Atlanta on satanic cults. He’d heard some amazing stuff about human sacrifices and indescribable sexual activities among children. He also learned about how deceptive the kids who were involved could be.
But nine murders with no clues. Impossible. Maybe Satan could do it, but not his children. They’d make a mistake. And could any kid shoot so well from more than a hundred yards?
Maybe, if one kid’s father was a former Marine who collected guns.
He looked over the notes he had made after his interview with William Barrett. His eyes were drawn to the last line.
“I’m older now.”
Age. Again.
Lucas grabbed the phone and called the school secretary. When she refused his request, he asked to speak to the principal. The principal gladly provided the birth dates for each of the children of the murder victims. After some quick calculations, the connection was obvious. Every victim had a child who was thirteen, or about to turn thirteen, at the time of the murder. But what did that mean? What was it about the age thirteen?
The age of transition. The age when all hell breaks loose. Unlucky number. Evil number.
Then he thought of something else. The lecturer at the Satan seminar had described some of the rituals. A common thread was saying things backwards. The Lord’s Prayer, for example. Was thirteen a lucky number for Satanists?
Some kind of initiation — kill a parent?
Lucas shook his head. “You’re reaching, big time,” he said to the empty room.
Still...
Lucas leaned back in his chair and blew air. He decided he’d return to the school and check the kids’ schedules from the beginning of their high-school careers. That would take some time. Teal County High School held grades eight through twelve. He’d see if the kids had classes together. Maybe homeroom. He assumed the counselor wouldn’t consider schedules to be confidential. If he did, he figured the principal wouldn’t.
He looked at the blackboard through squinted eyes. All those names were swimming in front of him. How many more people, and now maybe Lucas himself, would be blown away while he looked for connections by moving the kids’ names all over the board and drawing lines as he had done for their murdered parents?
Or stepparents?
Lucas clucked his tongue, thinking again about the broken families. He looked at the children’s last names and counted the stepchildren.
A moment later, Lucas’s vision cleared. He sat straight up in his chair and stared at the names on the board.
Stepchildren!
That’s when it happened — the “aha!”
Lucas moved to the blackboard. First he wiped out all the names of children under twelve. Then he erased Heather Landry, who was Kim Franklin’s stepsister. Larry Stark, stepbrother to Richard Crew, was next. Then Hamp Williams. His stepsister was Joanne Blevins. Then Jeff Peterson was gone. He left Joe Coulter’s and William Barrett’s names. They connected. All of them connected. Every dead parent still had a child on the board.
The large number of broken families had blinded him to the coincidence that should have been obvious.
Lucas knew who had murdered the parents. He didn’t know why, but he knew who. All he had to do now was find the rifle that matched the bullets, and he was certain he knew where it was.
Kevin Spurlock walked in the room. “I know B. R. did it. I stayed on him all day yesterday and I’m goin’ back right now. I guarantee you it has somethin’ to do with gamblin’, drugs, or cars, or ’shine.” Before Spurlock could sit down, Lucas grabbed him and steered him out the door.
“Hey, what you doing?”
“Going to the courthouse. I need your help.”
“About time,” Spurlock said.
“How can I help you?”
“I need to talk to you about Joe Coulter again.”
Today, Dr. Rooker was wearing gray Hush Puppies. “Glad to, except for what’s confidential.”
Lucas stroked his nose. “I need to know about some other kids too.” He took a pad from his coat pocket. “William Barrett, Kim Franklin, Richard Crew, Mariah and Melissa Drake, Rich Flinn, Kalli Black, Phil Blevins, Greg and Jeff Daniels.”
Dr. Rooker nodded and rested his elbows on his chair. “All good kids.”
“Even Coulter?”
“Victim of circumstance,” Dr. Rooker said. “The principal told me you talked to him. I talked to Joe and he told me what he said, so that part’s not confidential. His stepfather was horrid. Alcoholic. One time he got drunk and vomited. He rubbed Joe’s face in it. Tell me, Detective, what would you be like if you’d lived Joe’s life?”