Read Online Top Ten by Ryne Douglas Pearson - Free Book Online
Authors: Ryne Douglas Pearson
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like to buy a pumpkin?”
Her eyes bugged. “Excuse me, sonny?”
“Halloween is coming,” he told her, looking past where she stood to the room within. Couch, TV–this was the living room. Two windows on the west side. He had come up the street from that direction. There were bushes on that side of the white craftsman house. Overgrown bushes. That was good. “If you buy early you get the pick of the crop.”
Her stare narrowed down on him. “Are you serious?”
“Oh yes, ma’am,” he assured her through the screen door. The one just inside that—the one that would be closed at night—was of simple wooden construction. Single lock. Likely a chain as well. As if that would do any good. “A good pumpkin can make the holiday.”
“Boy, you are crazy,” she told him. “First, you a white boy in a neighborhood that don’t much trust white folks. Second, you talkin’ about Halloween— it’s a month off, boy! If I was to buy a pumpkin now, it’d be clean through rotted by then.”
“Nineteen days, ma’am,” he said. There were no children’s toys strewn about the yard. No sign of youngsters at all, in fact. That was good, too. Almost as good as the absence of any disturbed canine barking at his presence now. Yes, that was very good. “Almost three weeks. Not a month.”
She shook her head at him. “Get yourself the hell off my porch and off my property and back to the nuthouse where you belong.”
The inner door slammed in his face. He heard a chain being set as it rattled shut. He smiled and left Deandra Waley’s porch, her property, and her street. But he was not going to the nuthouse. Why would he want to go there? That’s where crazy people lived.
* * *
Why is he angry? Why?
The question nagged Ariel Grace now as she sat on the bed in her room at the Bright I Motor Hotel, back against the headboard, a soda can in one hand and the VCR remote in the other. Nagged her as it had since that morning when the Pembry Post Office tape had arrived by overnight courier from the FBI lab. She’d watched it twenty times at the office already, the first few disturbing her as Doris May was tortured and killed and cut up, but after that she let herself become numb to the carnage, the viciousness. She focused. Watched. Studied.
And now, with Wednesday winding down, she relaxed (if that were possible considering her activity) in her room with a beverage from the vending machine near the office and the quaking image of what had happened in the Pembry Post Office last Friday paused on the motel TV. She’d borrowed a VCR from the office, and had hooked it up to the wall-mounted twenty inch Zenith certain that some damage had been done in the connection process. That, however, didn’t bother her. What did was that she had watched the scenes another ten times or so and still she couldn’t get it. Why? Why was Michaelangelo so angry?
She pressed play and the scenes came to flat life once again. The images on screen alternated every two seconds between the Post Office’s four cameras–lobby, counter, sorting room, back lot. The lobby would pop up for a breath, then the counter, then the sort room, and finally the back lot before going back to the lobby in an endless, disjointed loop of what had happened Friday evening. A cost saving feature, it was, requiring just one recording deck, but damned if it hadn’t been maddening at first. By afternoon, though, Ariel had become used to it, having almost memorized the sequence, from his pounce upon Doris May in the back lot, to his taking her at knife point through the sorting room and past the counter to the lobby. There he’d forced her to the table next to the mail slots. There he had begun to berate her. There he had become angry.
There was no sound, but that was anger she was seeing, Ariel knew. None of his face was visible–Jaworski had been right about that–but his body language spoke volumes of what was driving him. His quick movements, his
Her eyes bugged. “Excuse me, sonny?”
“Halloween is coming,” he told her, looking past where she stood to the room within. Couch, TV–this was the living room. Two windows on the west side. He had come up the street from that direction. There were bushes on that side of the white craftsman house. Overgrown bushes. That was good. “If you buy early you get the pick of the crop.”
Her stare narrowed down on him. “Are you serious?”
“Oh yes, ma’am,” he assured her through the screen door. The one just inside that—the one that would be closed at night—was of simple wooden construction. Single lock. Likely a chain as well. As if that would do any good. “A good pumpkin can make the holiday.”
“Boy, you are crazy,” she told him. “First, you a white boy in a neighborhood that don’t much trust white folks. Second, you talkin’ about Halloween— it’s a month off, boy! If I was to buy a pumpkin now, it’d be clean through rotted by then.”
“Nineteen days, ma’am,” he said. There were no children’s toys strewn about the yard. No sign of youngsters at all, in fact. That was good, too. Almost as good as the absence of any disturbed canine barking at his presence now. Yes, that was very good. “Almost three weeks. Not a month.”
She shook her head at him. “Get yourself the hell off my porch and off my property and back to the nuthouse where you belong.”
The inner door slammed in his face. He heard a chain being set as it rattled shut. He smiled and left Deandra Waley’s porch, her property, and her street. But he was not going to the nuthouse. Why would he want to go there? That’s where crazy people lived.
* * *
Why is he angry? Why?
The question nagged Ariel Grace now as she sat on the bed in her room at the Bright I Motor Hotel, back against the headboard, a soda can in one hand and the VCR remote in the other. Nagged her as it had since that morning when the Pembry Post Office tape had arrived by overnight courier from the FBI lab. She’d watched it twenty times at the office already, the first few disturbing her as Doris May was tortured and killed and cut up, but after that she let herself become numb to the carnage, the viciousness. She focused. Watched. Studied.
And now, with Wednesday winding down, she relaxed (if that were possible considering her activity) in her room with a beverage from the vending machine near the office and the quaking image of what had happened in the Pembry Post Office last Friday paused on the motel TV. She’d borrowed a VCR from the office, and had hooked it up to the wall-mounted twenty inch Zenith certain that some damage had been done in the connection process. That, however, didn’t bother her. What did was that she had watched the scenes another ten times or so and still she couldn’t get it. Why? Why was Michaelangelo so angry?
She pressed play and the scenes came to flat life once again. The images on screen alternated every two seconds between the Post Office’s four cameras–lobby, counter, sorting room, back lot. The lobby would pop up for a breath, then the counter, then the sort room, and finally the back lot before going back to the lobby in an endless, disjointed loop of what had happened Friday evening. A cost saving feature, it was, requiring just one recording deck, but damned if it hadn’t been maddening at first. By afternoon, though, Ariel had become used to it, having almost memorized the sequence, from his pounce upon Doris May in the back lot, to his taking her at knife point through the sorting room and past the counter to the lobby. There he’d forced her to the table next to the mail slots. There he had begun to berate her. There he had become angry.
There was no sound, but that was anger she was seeing, Ariel knew. None of his face was visible–Jaworski had been right about that–but his body language spoke volumes of what was driving him. His quick movements, his
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