A couple of weeks went by, when one day I came home from school alone. It was a cool day and Janie stopped at her friend Tracey’s house on the way back. After a long day at school, I was happy to be home as I thought no one else was there. Then out of the corner of my eye, I witnessed Jason’s buddy Gill in the flesh. He was always at my house, even if no one else was there. He was never without a Budweiser in his hand. It was a regular thing for him to drink, drink, drink until he passed out and then like clockwork he pissed himself. There wasn’t much of a foreseeable future for him with his lifestyle.
Drunken Gill greeted me at the bottom of the driveway when I got back. He said nothing and gave me a big bear hug. He squeezed me so hard I thought my ribs would break. As if that wasn’t enough torture, he then took me to the above ground pool which wasn’t open yet and threw me in. I made a colossal splash as I went under the black mucky water, amidst thousands of leaves that had seeped under the tarp. The water was cold, maybe forty degrees, and I felt everything chattering from my knees to my teeth. When I climbed out, he was grinning ear to ear like a jackass.
Almost a month had gone by since the last murder and life began to feel calm again. Memorial Day was nearing and Janie and I were still scratching our heads as to where the body and head had gone. The Saturday just before Memorial Day, Ziggy asked me to go with him to work. Since Memorial Day week was a busy time for the monument business my parents owned, I really did not have a choice. The work truck my father owned was an orange-colored stake body Chevy with a lift gate which could easily fit five tombstones. When I got in the truck I noticed something unusual. One of the crates had cardboard on the sides and was mysteriously nailed shut.
Typically the crates had metal bands holding them together and this was also not the case. A vile stench was coming from this particular crate as I gagged in nausea. Somehow I recognized the smell though. Ziggy called Gill up and said, “Do me a favor and pick up some road kill on the way over? Don’t ask questions. Just do it.”
I was really confused as to why he needed to bring a dead animal to our work day. When Gill showed up, he had a dead squirrel.
He said with a drunken smile, “This is all I could find on short notice!” Then they placed it behind the crate. I heard him say, “If the cops pull us over, the squirrel smell will be our cover-up.”
“Cover-up for what?” I wondered.
It was about ten am and Gill and Ziggy stopped at the liquor store for a case of Budweiser each.
After riding around all day long, our final stop was somewhere in New Hampshire. On the top of a long steep hill was a cemetery that overlooked a creek of water. At dusk, we set the last stone but there was one last crate we had not taken care of yet. Ziggy told me to get out of the truck and wait. Gill and Ziggy drove off far into the cemetery and left me there alone.
I sat perched on a water bucket from the truck, getting bitten by a swarm of mosquitoes. It was getting dark and I started wondering if they were ever coming back. An hour later they returned, covered in dirt and sweat like they had run a marathon. I was not sure what they had done but it was clear the crate was gone along with that awful smell. “Could the fate of our dead rescuer be to be buried in an unnamed grave?” I started to wonder as I never underestimated Ziggy when it came to his ability to get away with murder. Remembering his threats clearly, I kept my mouth shut the whole way home except to drink the beer they gave me.
Third grade ended and school was out for the summer now. The previous summer was the beginning of seeing some pretty awful things, and I was worried this summer was going to be a repeat.
Janie came up to me playing in the yard one afternoon and said, “Sean, come with me. I really need to show you something.”
So I followed her to her room where she had something balled up in clothes and hidden in the back of her dresser.
“So don’t tell anyone but I found the wallet that belonged to the man who was killed trying to save us,” she whispered. “How did you get this?” I asked.
“While the body was still in the closet, I snuck in and took his wallet out of his shirt pocket. Now we have evidence,” she replied.
“Do you know what Ziggy will do to us if he finds out we have this?” I stammered.
“You are right. I need to hide it better,” Janie said. “I know where we can put it. Right under the front porch is a small crawl space. We can get in there but he can’t.” I nodded my head and we planned to hide it in there for the time being.
As we crouched down into the crawl space with the wallet, Janie stopped and said, “Wait, Sean. Why don’t we turn it in to the police? He killed two people in front of us. Who knows who else he will get. We could put an end to this.”
“I really want to, but we see Ziggy talking to the police all the time. Father Paul is on his side. They could all be on his side. Who can we trust?” I asked.
And we agreed not to risk it and placed the wallet in the crawl space.
Janie and I continued to discuss what happened with the two murdered men, always looking for options to get Ziggy caught. With as many options as we could come up with, the threat of losing our parents was enough to keep us good and quiet. Ziggy was too skilled at this. Perhaps too experienced and it didn’t look like he was going to get caught any time soon.