All Fall Down (13 page)

“Blaine!”

She hung up and sat shivering as she watched the digital car clock click away six minutes. Nervous reaction to finding Kathy’s body, coupled with fear of who might come bursting out of the gym after her, made her decide she couldn’t sit in the parking lot much longer. If Logan didn’t come soon—

A police car pulled into the lot. Blaine suddenly felt tears of relief streaming down her face. She quickly wiped them away before she stepped out of the car.

Logan jumped out of his vehicle and strode toward Blaine. “Who is it?” he asked tersely.

“Kathy Foss.” As another police car flashed into the lot, she fumbled in her left coat pocket and handed him the gym key. “Girls’ locker room. She was stuffed in a locker.”

Logan’s eyes widened slightly, but other than that, he showed no reaction. As usual in times of emergency, he was all business.

“Also, my stepdaughter is in the house alone,” Blaine added. “Please have a policeman go out there and stay with her.”

Logan nodded. “I will, and later I’ll need to ask you some questions, but right now I want
you
to go home.”

“No, I want to wait.”

“Blaine—”

Too ashamed to admit she still didn’t trust her driving, Blaine nearly shouted, “I want to wait!”

Logan looked thoroughly irritated. “You’ve always been the most obstinate woman I know! All right, dammit, get in your car and lock the doors. I’ll be back out as soon as possible, and
then
you’ll go home. Understand?”

Blaine complied meekly. Watching in the rearview mirror, she saw Logan go back to his car, obviously sending someone to the Avery home. Then he and the deputy drew their guns as they approached the gym and stepped into the bright lobby. Although she had instinctively locked the door on her way out, she had left lights blazing throughout the building.

The wind had picked up, sending the tattering of clouds sailing across the face of the moon. Also, the temperature was dropping. She started the car and turned the heater on high, although she knew her chill was only partly caused by the temperature outside.

She glanced in the rearview mirror again, then closed her eyes. I seem always to be waiting for the police to look at a body, Blaine thought. The first time was Martin. She had sat in the house on the couch, her mouth dry, her hands shaking violently as she clutched Ashley, who remained staunchly by her side. She couldn’t remember how many people had arrived after Logan came—she only remembered their impersonal voices discussing the position of the body, the nature of the gunshot wound, arrangements for an autopsy. And then Robin had come home. Blaine physically tried to keep the girl from looking at her father, but she tore away from Blaine and ran to the deck. She let out one thin scream before she lapsed into a silence that lasted for nearly twenty-four hours.

Someone tapped on the window and Blaine nearly shrieked. Catching her breath, she rolled down the window. “Found her,” Logan said, sounding exactly as he had the night they had located Rosie’s body. “Tell me what happened here tonight.”

Blaine swept her hair behind her ears and looked straight ahead, concentrating. “It was the first night of the talent show rehearsals. Kathy was one of the last five people to perform. Arletta Stroud was last, and she had to keep starting over. I didn’t think she’d ever finish, and by the time she did, all the other kids had left. I checked around before I closed the gym. I thought it was empty. Then I came out here and spotted Kathy’s car.”

Logan nodded, writing in a small notebook. “So you went back in after her?”

“Certainly. I couldn’t take a chance on leaving her locked in the gym all night. I thought she might be hurt.”

“Hurt?”

“She fainted today. Then she woke up saying something about Rosie and being there, knowing what happened. It’s all a jumble in my head right now, but I should have called you as soon as it happened.”

“I already knew. Arletta called Abel this afternoon to tell him. She probably told half the town.”

“Which probably got Kathy killed. Did you question Kathy?”

“No. Every time we called her house, her mother said she was out and she didn’t know where she was. I got the feeling she wasn’t telling the truth, so I planned to catch Kathy at school tomorrow. Blaine, if you thought Kathy knew something about the murder, if you thought she might be lying in the gym hurt, why didn’t you call me or someone else at the sheriff’s office? Why did you go back in there alone?”

“I tried to call, but the pay phone in the gym is broken. All other phones are in offices that were locked. And believe it or not, I simply forgot about the phone in my car.”

“You forgot about it?”

“I know that sounds strange, but I haven’t used it for a long time. I didn’t even pay the bill this month. I guess for once the phone company was a little slow, or it wouldn’t be working. I was so worried I didn’t even think to give it a try.” She clasped her cold hands together, aware of how lame her explanation sounded. Just about as lame as her claiming she’d decided to go shopping the Saturday afternoon that Martin died. On the advice of her lawyer, she’d never admitted they’d had a terrible fight that had driven her from the house. But she couldn’t think about that murder investigation now, not when Logan was looking at her once again as if he were trying hard to believe her but couldn’t. “Was Kathy drugged like Rosie?” she asked abruptly.

“Can’t tell. We’ll have to wait for the autopsy. But those
wrists—
” He shook his head. “Her hands were almost severed from her arms.”

“Oh, God.”

“It happened in that little room where the cheerleader and majorette gear is stored. Big pool of blood there. The blood that dripped between the room and the locker was wiped up with some kind of black, sequined costume we found on a hook in the locker.”

Blaine shivered. “Logan, that’s grotesque! Why would someone drag her to the locker?”

“Maybe the killer didn’t know how late you’d have to stay with Arletta and was afraid you’d check the little room before you left the gym and find Kathy before she’d had time to bleed to death.”

“If only Arletta hadn’t taken so long! I would have checked the locker room earlier—”

“And probably gotten yourself murdered, too.”

Blaine leaned forward, resting her forehead on the steering wheel. “Oh, Logan, just today I came down hard on Kathy for chewing gum.”

“Sounds serious.”

There was a trace of humor in Logan’s voice, and Blaine looked up at him. “How can you laugh?”

“I’m not laughing, but you have to put that incident in perspective. She probably never gave it a second thought.”

“Maybe not.” Blaine sighed. “How did the killer get in?”

“One of the locker room doors leading to the outside is unlocked.”

“But, Logan,
I
didn’t unlock any of those doors!”

“Any of the kids could have. Maybe not the killer— maybe he just hit it lucky—but I’ll need from you a list of everyone who was here tonight.”

“Okay. That should be easy. Are you going to call in the state police?”

“Not yet.”

“Not
yet?
”

“I do have a degree in criminal justice, Blaine, and I worked on a couple of big police forces before I came here. I know what I’m doing. I don’t want any interference right now.”

At that moment the ambulance pulled into the parking lot, lights flashing. A patrol car arrived about thirty seconds later. “I hate that sight,” Blaine murmured.

“So do I, but Sinclair’s crime lab has arrived.” Logan looked at her, his dark eyes lifeless. “I have to get this area secured, and you need to go home.”

“Yes.”

“Want someone to go with you?”

Blaine shook her head. “I can make it alone.”

“That’s what you said to me twelve years ago when you left for Dallas.”

Blaine glanced at him in surprise. “I can’t believe you remember my exact words.”

Logan stared at her for a few seconds. “Go home, Blaine.”

3

It was after twelve when Logan got home. He quietly opened the door to the three-bedroom, white frame house and stepped inside, stopping to listen for a moment. The listening was an old habit he’d acquired in the early years of his marriage when Dory so often waited up for him watching television. But no sounds floated from the family room at the back of the house. Of course they wouldn’t Dory had been gone for five weeks this time, and Logan’s mother, who had moved in to look after Timothy during Dory’s absence, was always in bed by eleven.

Logan walked softly down the hall to his room. He was stopped, however, by his son calling, “Daddy?”

Logan walked into the small room decorated with posters of
Star Wars
and Jean-Claude Van Damme, his son’s current hero, although he’d only seen the less violent snatches of Van Damme’s movies. The posters shone dimly in the glow of the night-light. Timothy sat up in his twin bed, his black hair awry. “What are you doing still awake?” Logan asked, going to sit on the bed. “Tomorrow’s a school day.”

“I know. But I had a dream, Daddy. Grandma told me it was important for us Indians to tell our dreams, so you want to hear mine?”

Logan smiled. His mother, called Allie although her real name was Alequippa, was a full-blooded Iroquois determined that her only grandson would learn about the old ways, even if he chose not to follow them. Timothy had embraced some of the traditions fervently, one being the belief that dreams were the universal oracle, capable of revealing the dreamer’s guardian spirit, warning him about enemies, and predicting his destiny. At one time, every morning Indian mothers had questioned their children in great detail about their dreams.

“Okay, Tim, tell me what you dreamed.”

Timothy crossed his arms across his thin chest, puckered his forehead, and began talking in a hushed, dramatic voice. “Well, I was out in the woods, just foolin’ around. Then all at once this big gold dog came runnin’ out of the trees and started barkin’ at me. Its hair was all tangled, but I petted it anyways, and it seemed to like that, but when I stopped pettin’ and started to go down this path in the woods, it wouldn’t let me. It grabbed my jeans leg and started pullin’. I didn’t know what was goin’ on at first. Then I knew the dog was tryin’ to tell me somethin’ bad was in the woods, so I followed the dog away. We both ran and ran. And sure enough, there was a great huge
monster
in the woods! It was comin’ for me and the dog saved me!”

Logan reached out and ruffled his son’s hair. “Tim, that’s the beginning of
Watchers
.”

“Huh?”

“The book
Watchers
by Dean Koontz. Last year you found the book and brought it to your mother. She read the first part to you, but not all of it, because you got scared when the monster appeared.”

“I wasn’t one bit scared!” Tim said stoutly.

Actually, Tim had burst into tears at the description of the hideous monster who stalked the dog, but Logan knew how important pride was to the little boy. “Well, I guess Mommy was mistaken about you being scared. But, son, the dream
was
about a book. It wasn’t a forecast of the future.”

Timothy looked dismal. “Then there’s no big gold dog that’s gonna protect me?”

“Not that I know of.”

“Shoot.” The child turned to look out the window at the brown pine tree right outside. “My birthday tree’s dyin’.”

“I know, Tim. We’ll plant a new one.”

Timothy’s voice piped up hopefully. “As soon as Mommy gets home?”

“Sure.”

“When
is
Mommy comin’ home?”

“Real soon, I’m sure.”

“What you mean is you don’t know. What if she doesn’t get home for Thanksgivin’?” Timothy’s voice rose in distress. “What if she doesn’t get home for
Christmas?
”

Logan’s voice tightened. “She’ll be here for Christmas, son.” She’ll be here if I have to drag her back from New Mexico by that beautiful, long blond hair she’s so proud of, he thought. “You know your mother wouldn’t miss Christmas with you.”

“She missed Halloween. Next to Christmas, that’s my favorite time, and she didn’t come.”

“But we did fine, didn’t we? You looked like a real Indian chief in that costume your grandmother made.”

“Yeah, I did. But real Indian chiefs aren’t named Timothy. I wish I had a real Indian chief’s name like you.”

Logan looked at him seriously. “Well, your mother and I did consider calling you Cornstalk. How would you have liked that?”

“Not too good.” Timothy giggled.

“Sitting Bull was also a possibility. Either that or Crazy Horse.”

Timothy was convulsed. “Ugh!”

“What’s that? Indian talk?” Timothy fell on his side, laughing into his pillow.

“Actually, the Logan I’m named after was really called Tah-gah-yee-tah. Logan is what he started calling himself because white men couldn’t say his name right.”

“But he was a chief, just like you!”

Logan smiled. “I’m a sheriff, son, not a chief.”

“But you’re the chief of all the other police.”

“I guess. But Logan wasn’t even really a chief—just a leader.”

“A leader of the Six Nations!”

“Well, of the members of the Six Nations who decided to move south from New York.”

“And Logan was a friend of the white man till his
whole
family got treach’rously murdered by an evil guy. Then he seeked revenge. Grandma told me.”

“Did she?”

“Yep. He didn’t have any rel’tives left.”

A voice rang out behind them. “ ‘There runs not a drop of my blood in the veins of any living creature.’” The voice returned to normal tones. “Logan said that in his most famous speech.”

Logan turned to face his mother, who stood in the doorway, tall and slim in her white robe. Her hair, barely touched by gray, was pulled back into a braid that hung to her waist. She didn’t look very different from the pictures taken before her marriage, when she’d lived on the St. Regis Reservation in upper New York. Logan’s father met her when as a young man he’d left Sinclair and gone to New York City to do bridge construction work; there he’d become friends with one of his co-workers, Allie’s brother. They’d married months within meeting and come back to Sinclair, where Allie seemed happy, although she was considered somewhat of an oddity in the town’s predominantly WASP population. She smiled and came into the room. “How can anyone sleep with all this hilarity going on next door?”