Diane Davidson - The Grilling Season

I tried to roll over and was only partially successful. My back seemed to have regained its flexibility, but the only thing really paining me now was my left hand, in particular, my left thumb. Broken in three places by the Jerk, and destined forever to give me trouble.

I looked at my aching thumb. I looked at it and looked at it, and I had a dawning sense of horror. You’ll be throwing pizza in no time, the orthopedic surgeon had told me after a particularly savage beating had brought me to the hospital along with the broken thumb. He knew the pattern of bruises inflicted by the Jerk because he’d seen them before. I’ll be kicking field goals in no time, he’d promised, much later. What do you think… you’ll go back to being an orthopedic surgeon? Suz had said. Your voice sounds so familiar, I’d said. Did you treat Arch.?

No. He’d treated me. A long time ago. He could plan the murder because he knew exactly what to do and how to make it look as if John Richard Korman had done it.

At that moment the side door of the LakeCenter swung open and Chris Corey appeared, a heavy, bearded study in fury. He saw me on the floor, holding my aching thumb. He snarled: “I see you’re still good at getting yourself injured! How’s the thumb? And while you’re telling me, give me those tapes!”

28

I scrambled to my feet. Pain shot through my body, but I had to think. The front door to the LakeCenter was locked; the back door was locked – for security. Somehow I had to get out through the entrance where Chris Corey stood.

“I don’t have them,” I replied shakily.

“I know you do! I paid that kid, Luke Tollifer, to watch Suz’s house. Where are they?”

“In the car, in the car! My van!”

“Show me!”

I made my way to the door, thinking I might be able to slip past him and run. Before I could squeak by, however, he grabbed my left hand, and then my thumb. Cruelly, he twisted it behind my back. I yelped. At the same time, I noticed the cast on his ankle had mysteriously vanished.

“Where’s your phone?”

“In… in my apron pocket.” He felt inside my pocket with his free hand, tugged my phone out, and sent it skittering across the shiny floor. “I want the tapes, then I’ll leave. Walk to your van, get those tapes, then I’m gone.

Scream, and I swear to God I’ll hit you harder than I did her.”

Oh, God. Fear washed through my body. My feet slid out from under me. He wrenched me up off the slippery floor.

“Please, Chris, don’t,” I gasped. “Think about what this is going to do to you. To Tina.”

“Yeah, yeah. ‘Think about Tina’ is what I should have done before, huh? Move.”

“Okay, okay,” I gasped. My thumb throbbed in agony. I feared I’d pass out. Chris pushed me forward through the threshold of the side door. I looked back at him, insanely confused that his limp had also disappeared. As he fiercely nudged me along the log wall, a gaggle of redwing blackbirds erupted from the wetlands bordering the LakeCenter.

I looked around wildly for help. The parking lot was empty except for my van. Where had Chris parked? I thought about screaming. But who would hear me? We were hundreds of yards from the road, even farther from the Lakeview Shopping Center.

As we rounded the building, Chris pushed me along the sidewalk toward the parking lot. I caught a I glimpse of a car on the far side of the building – the side opposite the kitchen. Of course. He’d driven up quietly and parked away from the kitchen. And naturally he knew how to be quiet; hadn’t he approached Suz’s house in the darkness and quiet, in a Jeep just like John Richard’s?

The guard was no help. Chris had clobbered him – the crash I’d heard at the front – and he lay sprawled next to the trash can.

“Where are the tapes?” Chris asked as we neared my van.

“Ahh … aah …”

He wrenched my thumb brutally. “Where?”

“I can’t … think … if you’re hurting me,” I protested in a low voice. I was using negotiating skills I had learned long ago, to keep John Richard from hurting me. When he relented a bit, I said, “Aah … under the… passenger seat. It’s a tight squeeze, you’ll never be able to reach. Better let me … get them.”

The first cars of the doll people appeared at the far end of the dirt-road entryway to the LakeCenter. Stall, stall, I thought desperately. Chris wrenched open the passenger-side door and pushed me inside, still gripping my thumb.

“You have to let go of me,” I gasped. “Or I can’t get them.” I tried to think. Where was my tire iron? Did I have any spare kitchen utensils anywhere, something I could use on him? He shoved me into the van on my stomach. But at least he relinquished his death-grip on my thumb. I reached under the seat with my numb left hand. Nothing, of course. “Hold on,” I called. “Just a sec.”

He yanked back on my legs so violently that I thought I would break in two. I landed half in, half out, and on my side.

“Help!” I screamed. I had no idea if the doll people were even within earshot. “Somebody! Help!”

Chris picked me up by the waist and threw me on my back on the passenger-side seat. Then he flung his whole, heavy body on top of me. His fleshy hand clamped over my mouth. I kicked wildly. But with him on top of me and outweighing me by a good one hundred and fifty pounds, I had zero leverage.

“Shut up!” he breathed. His hand tightened on my throat. Panic shot through me. He was going to strangle me. I’d never see Arch again. Or Tom. I thrashed wildly. Chris’s hand slipped off my throat. The glove compartment banged open.

Marla’s bag of drugs fell onto the van floor. Oh God, help me, I prayed as I strained under Chris’s weight. I groped desperately. Keep calm, keep calm, keep calm. I reached into the bag, found nothing, scrabbled around frantically. Then my fingers closed over what I sought. I popped off the needle cover.

Chris had grabbed my throat again. He squeezed. With every ounce of strength I had left, I stabbed him with Marla’s hypodermic of Versed. I pushed down on the plunger, hard.

Stunned, Chris squealed with pain. His hold on me relaxed momentarily. He screamed again and hauled back to tear the needle from his body. I scrambled through the open door. By the time I was outside, Chris was stumbling dazedly down the parking lot, toward the LakeCenter and his car.

I watched him, open-mouthed, gasping for breath. Was he going to just… take off? Was he so big that a dose of a superpotent tranquilizer had no effect on him? He faltered, appeared to trip, and then staggered forward.

“The Babsies!” I screamed at the large group of beautifully dressed women who were sashaying across the lot toward the LakeCenter door. “That big blond man! He’s stolen them!” I pointed at Chris. He turned to stare open-mouthed at me, not comprehending. He was slowing down, no question. But he was only twenty feet from his car. “The Babsies!” I shrieked again at the women, gesticulating wildly. “That man knocked out the guard! He’s going to take the dolls!”

The women started to trot. Chris gaped at them. Then he turned and floundered toward his vehicle. The women picked up speed.

“No, no!” he cried as the first doll collector attacked him. “No!” I heard him shout when two more women jumped on him. Bellowing in astonishment, he staggered forward. Then, under the on-slaught of furious Babsie protectors, he fell to his knees.

I walked shakily back to the LakeCenter to call the sheriff’s department. Chris Corey wasn’t going anywhere.

29

Tom, as it turned out, had been up at his cabin. Empty since high creekwaters had flooded the first floor with two inches of water, unrented since Arch, Tom, and I had spent several weekends scraping off dried mud, the cabin now awaited a professional interior paint job. When Tom drove up and parked half a mile away, then used a little-known path through the woods to approach the place from the back, he had a hunch that the cabin held a squatter – one of the very few people who knew about the flood damage and the time we’d spent cleaning the place up. Unfortunately, John Richard hadn’t figured that Tom would be able to take him so easily. By the time Tom arrested the Jerk again, Sergeant Beiner had appeared at the LakeCenter and arrested Chris Corey.