* * * *
William Jones was sixteen when he became infatuated with Julie Jenson. She was a fifteen-year-old that had moved into the house at the end of the block that summer. William never knew anything about seduction. He did know that Julie seemed lost about moving into a strange town. William knew he had to make his move before school started. William was a scrawny kid with poor coordination. He never played any sports in school. He only had two friends that were even lower in the school's pecking order than he was. Julie was not very pretty but she had already developed large breasts. Once school started, William was sure she would start going with members of the football team and leave him.
It was late in August when William convinced her to go out to an abandoned shack just outside of town. He had been stealing a beer at a time from his father for the whole summer. His hoard now numbered twenty bottles of beer and a bottle of whiskey he got from pouring the half-empty glasses his father had drank before falling asleep at night back into the bottle.
At first, Julie wasn't very friendly but after a few beers she let him grope her breasts. As Julie slowly became drunk, he removed her clothes. He was already fucking her as she lost consciousness. For the rest of the hot late-summer day and into the night, William sat naked drinking beer and whiskey. Whenever he finished a beer, he mounted the unconscious girl. He finally stopped after she threw up on him while he was fucking her.
It was something William never understood. After that hot August day, Julie never let him see her alone. William had thought that after that day, they would be boyfriend and girlfriend. He had fantasized about how high he would rise in the school's pecking order when he put his arms around the large-breasted Julie in the halls between classes.
It was the first week in October when William knew something was wrong. He had just gotten home from school. His father was sitting in his ratty old sofa chair with a half empty bottle of Yukon Jack on the coffee table in front of him.
"Boy! Get right here!" his father snarled, pointing to the front of the
chair.
William stood where his father pointed. The next thing William remembered was lying against the living room wall, blood dripping from cuts along the left side of his face with a ringing in his ears. His father had grabbed the collar of his shirt, causing him to gag and choke whenever he shook him. The fetid alcohol-soaked breath of his father penetrated his senses as his father screamed at him.
From a vast distance, the words his father screamed slowly found focus in William's mind. "Knocked ... Knocked up ... girl ... stealing booze ... stealing my booze ... if you can't keep your pecker to yourself... " Finally, unconsciousness brought oblivion to William.
William never saw Julie again. Her family left town before she could start showing her pregnancy. That same month, the cast was taken off the broken arm his father had given him and his grandmother forced him to marry
his third cousin. He had just turned seventeen. His cousin was nineteen years old and already divorced. Her ex-husband was serving fifteen to twenty years in Illinois for armed robbery.
It was two years later when his father showed up at his apartment with papers to sign that he finally found out what happened to Julie. The papers were for adoption of his son by her new husband. With his father and his wife looking on, he only remembered two things from the papers, the name of the town Julie now lived in, Sioux Bluff, South Dakota and the name of her new husband.
It was two decades later after his father died in a drunken brawl, that William started to look for his son. He did it carefully and slowly, afraid his wife would find out what he was doing. Over the years, his wife had grown meaner. She had resented the fact that the family had decided that she had to marry William to control him. As a reward, she became the matriarch of the Jones family after William's grandmother died. But the reward didn't last.
When William's grandmother died, the family started to move away, those that weren't in jail. William's wife didn't have the strength of Mother Jones to control a whole family. She did, however, have the strength to control him.
* * * *
James saw the small news truck pull in. He had carefully watched over Lori through the night and followed her to the school. He had just stopped by his trailer for some food and a nap before he planned on starting his own pushing. The reporter was one of those perpetually bubbly young reporters that the small local TV stations hire straight from college. She had the standard short hair of most live TV news reporters, a small turned up nose and eyes that were open wider than average. The only thing that made her more human that a mechanical wind-up doll was a slight lisp to her voice. Through the edge in his curtains, James watched the reporter with her cameraman set up just in front of his steps.
James heard the introduction she taped through the thin trailer walls. "This is Debbi Nord-Schuler reporting for Action News 7 & 11. I am in front of the home of James Makinen, a former teacher in the Deer Lake Falls school district. Sources close to the investigation have told Action News that Mr. Makinen was being investigated by the county sheriff's department on assault allegations placed by the first victim, Jennifer Rossetti, at the time of her death. Sources have also told us that he has been linked to other assaults involving students in the district. We have been able to confirm that several incidents have occurred in the last few days involving Mr. Makinen. The sheriff's department has been unwilling to make any other statements concerning Mr. Makinen, stating that they do not comment on ongoing investigations.
"We have tried repeatedly to contact Mr. Makinen by phone, but he has not answered our calls. We do know that he has hired his own lawyer, who has also refused to make any statements."
She put down her mike. "Okay, Carl. Let's wrap it up here. I want you to pan across the trailer and focus in on the padlocked shed in back and the piles of brush. We'll set up for our next segment in front of Bodonavich, Finch, and Heiminen."
After panning across the trailer, Carl asked, "Aren't you going to see if he's home?"
"Why? Unless we get some comments from the cops, it will play better not to give the man a face. It scares the public more and there is less chance of getting into any liability trouble."
"Okay. Let's go."
James changed his plans. As the reporter taped her piece in front of his law firm, he walked up to their truck. He poured some used oil behind the back bumper. He had watched the cameraman open the back hatch to place the camera in the truck after filming at his place.
Acting like any spectator watching a news filming, James waited for them to come back from the steps of the law firm. The cameraman went down to
his knees when he stepped into the oil. James rushed up to help and to the astonishment of the watching reporter got the cameraman to his feet. Somehow in the resulting tangle, the camera was dropped into the old motor oil with the tape cassette lying next to it.
She yelled, "Carl, you idiot! Look what happened to the tape!" They both rushed over to the cassette. By the time the TV crew turned their attention away from the oil-sodden cassette, the man who had helped Carl had disappeared. All either of them could remember afterwards was the man looked average.
James wasn't much of a detective. He knew that if he waited, Lori might get hurt, so he attacked the only way he thought he could. He drove to the school.
He first went to the superintendent's office. Walking past the old man sweeping the floor and the secretary, Thelma, he opened Shermon's door. Inside he saw Shermon, his face pale with a lost look. As James watched him, he saw his face turn to red anger.
Before Shermon could say a word, James asked, "Do you know who killed Jenny and Pike ... Did you?" James watched the emotions play across Shermon's face as he tried to sputter out an answer.