Henry talked to Vernon and all the others left on the task force before the end of the day. He told them that no matter what anyone else said, Billy Jones was still out there. Frank Jenson and Al Gallea had been killed when they confronted Billy alone. No one was to go after Billy without backup.
It was six o'clock and there was one final name on the list of Billy Jones' acquaintances to be interviewed, Pastor Tom Peterson. Vernon was processing paperwork at a desk down the hall and Nancy was still at dispatch. Henry told them both where he was going and to contact him immediately if anything happened.
Peterson's wife answered the door.
"Hello. Mrs. Peterson?" A small nod was the reply. "I'm Deputy Sheriff Henry Hakanen. My office called earlier about asking your husband some questions ... about one of his parishioners."
In a small voice, the woman replied, "Oh, yes. I remember the call. My husband has not been feeling well. Do you have to talk to him?"
"I'm sorry, but it is very important that I speak to him."
She paused to think and with a slight nod she said, "He's in his office. I'll take you there." She turned and walked to the back of the house. Without looking to see if Henry was following, she continued. "He's not been feeling well. I've talked to the district office. Reverend Sharpton talked to Tom yesterday. The district is making arrangements for Tom to visit a retreat in Arizona for a few months. We'll be leaving before the end of the week."
By the time she finished her ramblings, they were standing at a closed door. She looked up at Henry then knocked on the door. "Honey, Deputy Hakanen has stopped by to talk to you." She turned to Henry and whispered, "Go on in. I'll wait for you in the living room."
Henry entered the darkened room. A small desk lamp at the table was the only illumination. Henry stood in the doorway waiting for his eyesight to adjust to the dark. A voice from a chair in the corner rambled in a strange cadence.
"Mr. Peterson." After a pause Henry repeated in a slightly louder voice, "Mr. Peterson."
"Who is that? Did God send you? Have you come to bring judgment on those sinners, Lori Waithe and James Makinen?"
"I've come to ask you about one of you parishioners, William Jones."
"Who?"
"William possibly Billy Jones."
"Oh, yes, Billy Jones, a true man of God. Deacon Shermon told me how strong a Christian brother Jones is. You know, he tithes every paycheck. I stopped by his home once. He had his bible in the living room. We talked and prayed. He fixed us this beautiful little lunch. We talked about God's wrath and the coming tribulation. It was joyous ... What was it you wanted to talk about?"
"I would like to find out more about what Billy Jones said to you."
"Oh, yes. Billy Jones, a wonderful man of God. Did you know I felt the hand of God touch me when I prayed for damnation on those sinners, Makinen and Waithe?"
"We were talking about Billy Jones."
"I felt God's hand touch me. The power threw me across the sanctuary. I woke with the red vision of God's judgment in my eyes. Hallelujah! Praise Jesus! Thank you, Lord, for your blessed vision! Would you bow your head in prayer with me? Thank you, Lord ... Thank you, Jesus... "
Henry looked at the kneeling man and backed out of the darkened room.
In the living room, Henry asked his wife, "What happened to him?"
"It started when the congregation walked out on him during his Sunday sermon some weeks ago. Then a few days ago, he came back from praying at the church with a dazed look on his face. He's been talking about God's judgment since then. He's spent most of the last two days shut up in his office. He won't come out and he won't let me turn on the lights or open the curtains. He just sits in there praying for judgment and damnation." She then quietly started to sob. Quick intakes of breath were followed by a nearly inaudible moan.
Henry touched her shaking shoulders whispering, "I'm sorry. Would you want me to call someone for you?"
The penitent head shook 'no.' Henry let his hands rest on her shoulders for a minute, then left the stricken home.
* * * *
_The room seems to be bathed in greater darkness when the lamp turns on. The single spot of illumination fails to hold the blackness at bay. Mysterious shadows from the light accent the tendons and veins of the hands, making them into talons that scratch at the deck of cards, turning over the next._
_On the foreground of the card, a man and a woman are chained. A large figure is perched on the post they are bound to. Curling goat horns come from the large figure's head and bat wings sprout from his back. A pentagram is etched on the creature's forehead. His right hand is raised in greeting and his left hand carries a lighted torch. A closer look at the two in front discerns that a set of horns issue from their red hair and tails come from behind their backs.
CHAPTER 19:
The Devil Billy slowly rocked back and forth in the chair and waited. He felt a
slight breeze from the window he had forced open in the back of the apartment. He liked this room. It had the close, dark feel of an animal's den. His left hand went into his pants pocket and pulled out the small piece of jaw. He caressed the bone lovingly. Finally, he put the trophy back and removed his keys from his other pocket. He jingled the keys in time with his rocking but finally his playful hands reached for his talisman at the end of the key chain. There the hands stroked the polished white three-inch long piece of bone. When questioned by his drinking buddies, he told them it was a portion of rib bone from the first deer he had ever shot. He rubbed the bone against his cheek and lips remembering when he first got it.
It was after he killed the driver of the wrecked car. An uneasiness came over him. He couldn't sleep. He didn't eat. Finally, he loaded a case of beer in his pickup and drove. He found himself in Sioux Bluff. He had always known where Julie had died. This was the first time he had an urge to see her grave. He drove to the cemetery. There he walked past the stones, reading the names, one by one. Then he saw it, Julie Jenson Shermon. He sat by the graveside through the afternoon drinking beer.
A man drove up with a backhoe. He dug a grave at the far corner of the cemetery. Another man arrived in a pickup. Together the two men spread green astro turf over the mound of fresh dirt. They pulled the backhoe to a small shed at the back of the cemetery and left in the pickup as the sun went down past the far hills.
Billy drank two more beers as night brought silence to the small town. The craving came over him to see Julie again. Billy staggered to the backhoe. The keys were gone but he had hot wired tractors before. He jolted his way through the cemetery, missing most of the large headstones, rolling over the smaller ones. He tore a small pinhole in the hydraulic line crossing over a headstone. A thin spray of oil came from the hose every time he used the hydraulics. The oil landed on the hot manifold of the tractor, filling the still air with fumes. Within a half-hour after getting to Julie's grave, the shovel on the backhoe bit through the rotted wood on her coffin. Going back to his pickup for a lantern and a beer, he sat for hours on the edge of her broken coffin, his feet resting on her corpse. The weak light of the lantern flickered across her rotted flesh, making the corpse seem to breathe.
Billy talked to her about what he had done over the years. Then told her how he had killed the man in the car. Finally he relived with her the moments when he became a man in his own mind, his raping of her. As he talked, he became hard with lust. His anger flared as he watched the rotted corpse seem to move in the flickering light. He wanted her but couldn't consummate the act with the corpse.