A couple of weeks had passed since our last trip with Ziggy and Father Paul. Janie and I were through tolerating their vicious games, so our goal was to conspire a plan to defeat them.
After school one day, Janie and I were up in Ziggy’s room rummaging around for spare change so we could go to the penny store for candy. Mid search, she stumbled upon some suspicious paperwork Ziggy left behind on his nightstand.
She looked over at me and said, “What do you think this is?”
I replied, “I don’t know. It looks like a map or something.”
Janie asked, “A map of what?”
My response was, “Wait, Janie. Something looks familiar about this! Look at these dates and locations. Dad used to have numbers like this on his tickets whenever he flew to Chicago for work...”
“So... should we put it back?” Janie asked.
“No. I say we keep it. Let’s put it under the porch with the wallet. We need all the leverage we can to stop them. I am done being scared all the time. We just need to be smart to stay alive,” I said.
The next day, we heard Ziggy frantically tearing his room apart. He yelled, “Hey, Sport! Get in here! Were you in my room yesterday?!”
I walked towards the room but choose not to respond, staring blankly ahead. He asked again, “Sport, you there? I’m looking for the paper I left on my nightstand. Have you seen it?”
Thinking quickly, I fabricated a believable story, “Jason was up here yesterday with some friends. Maybe he knows where it is.”
“Alright, Sport. I’ll ask Jason. Let me know if you see it,” Ziggy demanded.
The next day we overheard a conversation between Gill and Ziggy regarding the missing map.
“I still haven’t found it,” Ziggy said muffled in the distance. I crept closer to the door, stepping softly while keeping my back against the wall. Trying not to breathe too heavily, I motioned Janie closer as well.
“Are you kidding me, Ziggy? How the hell did you lose that? That’s concrete evidence. If anyone figures out what it is, we’re both fucked... Does Father Paul know it’s missing?” asked Gill.
Ziggy shook his head while tapping his fingers on the desk in front of him, “No... Father Paul doesn’t even know I put it on paper. I’m not an idiot. I just need to retrace my steps again.”
Janie and I looked at each other. They didn’t think we had the guts to steal something from them...
Early the next day Jason asked me to go to work with him. Before starting the day’s work, we stopped by to see my father at his office, where he handed Jason a piece of paper on which he had handwritten the locations of where the stones should be placed. The cemetery system divides the graves on the ground into street names with markers including numbers to mark the lots. As we drove closer towards the cemetery, I noticed the paper my father handed Jason looked eerily familiar. As we drove through the gates, Jason told me the same stupid joke again.
“You know why they put that fence there?”
I said, “No.”
Jason answered, “Because people are dying to get in here.”
“I haven’t heard that a hundred times,” I said, rolling my eyes.
Jason jumped out of the truck and asked the caretaker, “Excuse me, sir, I’m looking for the section this stone should go in. Could you help me?”
As Jason conversed with the caretaker, I sat in the truck, still mesmerized by the paper that looked so familiar. Looking closer, I noticed that the numbers on this paper were the same numbers as the ones on Ziggy’s map. They were not air flights at all. They were grave locations.
“These must be the plot locations of all the people Ziggy and Father Paul killed. That’s why Ziggy was panicking when it went missing,” I speculated.
Jason walked back to the truck with the information he needed about the lot and the location. He said to me, “You know they can stack up to five people in one grave. We are going to have to be careful over there. The caretaker just told me the ground is still soft from a fresh burial. It could collapse from the weight of the stone when we carry it over on the two wheeler.”
“Wait, did you say five people can be stacked in one grave?”
Jason answered, “Listen and you won’t have to ask twice. Now quit standing there and help me out.”
I proceeded to help Jason as the puzzle pieces started coming together. If more than one person could be stacked in a grave, Ziggy must have been burying bodies in other people’s graves all along. This was a perfect way for him to dispose of the bodies...It seemed hard to believe but genius, to say the least. The authorities would never suspect this. The perfect place to hide a body and get away with it was in a fresh grave.
As soon as I arrived home, I explained my map theory to Janie. “So now that we know what the map means, my next question is why Ziggy is keeping the locations of the bodies on paper?”
“Could it be that he’s using it for insurance against Father Paul?” Janie asked.
“I don’t know. He’s Father Paul’s puppet. He will do anything he asks,” I replied.
“Exactly, maybe he’s done working for Father Paul and wants out. But we have the map now. If we took it to the police, we could get both of them locked up for murder. Finally, something to hold against them,” Janie said.
Now that concrete evidence was in our hands, what should we do with it? Would the cops believe us? We were just kids. Would our parents believe us? We didn’t know.
After school, it was Janie and my responsibility to watch my six-year-old nephew Mickey for a few hours until his dad came to pick him up. We loved hanging out with Mickey who looked the most Irish out of all of us due to his strawberry red hair and a full face of freckles. Everyday Janie and I waited at the top of the driveway for him to return home on his walk back from school.
One Tuesday afternoon, Janie stopped me at the front door on my way into the house and pleaded, “They are inside waiting for Mickey to get home! They told me to bring him to them.”
I asked, “To whom?”
She explained, “Ziggy and Father Paul.” My voice shook as I asked, “Wait, Father Paul is in there? Where is his car?”
Janie explained, “He parked up the street, cut through the woods and snuck in through the cellar.”
“Okay, what are we going to do?” I asked Janie.
“I have an idea. Let’s cut Mickey off at the hill outside and hide him in the neighbor’s house until his dad comes.”
Before Mickey got halfway down the hill, we grabbed him and ran for dear life. Ziggy, watching through the window, ran up the hill and attempted to rip him from our grip. We fought for Mickey but Ziggy overpowered us.
Since we did not have enough physical strength, Janie attacked Ziggy verbally.
She said, “Ziggy, you are just his fool. You will do anything he says... But we know that’s because you are just weak and afraid of him. I am going to tell everybody what you’ve done! And we have the graveyard map you’re looking for! Does Father Paul know its missing?”
Ziggy paused, still with Mickey in his grip, almost letting go. Then he looked over his shoulder to see Father Paul waving him into the house.
Sternly he said, “We’re not finished. I will deal with you two later!”
Heartbroken about not being able to save Mickey ourselves, Janie and I realized we could still possibly find help.
“We have to call his dad and tell him he’s really sick!” Janie squealed.
“But Janie, the phone is inside and they will definitely hear us. The only way to make the call is if we could get to the payphone up the street at the drugstore. Hurry, let's look for some change!”
Knowing their intentions with Mickey, Janie and I wasted no time finding some change in the cars in the driveway. We sprinted up the street and called his father Peter’s number, explaining how sick he was. Peter arrived quickly, but it may have been too late. Ziggy and Father Paul left when they heard Peter’s car pull in and our lives were spared.
Peter ran into the house and found Mickey cowering in the corner with soiled pants. He yelled at Janie and me, “You should have called me sooner! How long has he been like this?” Then he carried little Mickey out the door with him.
As soon as Peter left, tears streamed down Janie’s face and she slammed her hand on the table.
“Do you think Peter got here in time?”
“I don’t know,” she said, sobbing at this point.
“We can’t tell Peter the truth. They will kill him and Mickey! It’s not fair!” I yelled, while clutching onto a pillow from the couch for comfort.
This was it. We had reached our breaking point. Now Father Paul knew we were not afraid to tell and we were insubordinate. Also Ziggy knew we had the map. As terrifying as it was to stand up for ourselves, it felt good to be fighting back for once. The bad guys couldn’t win every time. This wasn’t a victory. We may have failed at saving Mickey, but we drew a line in the sand.
The next day, Janie and I discussed what we should do with the locations of the bodies on our map.
“Now that Ziggy knows we have the map, we need to do something,” Janie said to me.
“Yea, I know. Maybe you shouldn’t have told him about it... Maybe we acted too fast,” I said.
“Are we going to keep this a secret forever?” Janie asked as tears rushed down her cheeks.
A few hours later, Ziggy came home and our hearts sank. Luckily for us, Jason was home and we could scream if Ziggy tried to hurt us. When Ziggy entered the house, he walked right up to us with a half-friendly grin.
Janie took a different approach this time. Tired of the victim role, Janie said to him, “Hello Ziggy...”
Ziggy said, “Okay, So I am going to ask you nicely this time and then it’s not going to get better. Where is my paper?”
Janie stated, “Not telling you...”
“Okay this is how you want to play?!” Then Ziggy lifted Janie’s mattress and knocked over her dresser. Janie and I did the best we could not to react. “Don’t show him you are afraid,” Janie whispered to me. This scare tactic isn’t going to work for him this time.”
Defeated and out of breath, Ziggy ran out of energy from tearing the place up and walked out the door.
He looked back at Janie on his way out and said, “This time... you've gone too far!”
Then he slammed the door shut, knocking over the picture on the wall next to the door. We knew that this small victory was not something to be taken lightly. We were messing with evil men here and it would have been foolish to underestimate their degree of insanity.
Janie and I walked on eggshells after defying Ziggy and Father Paul. We set up code words and remained on the lookout for Ziggy’s car coming in the driveway. The last thing we needed was to be alone with him. For the next week, Ziggy stayed away from the house, so we begin to disarm. He kept his distance and we were not sure why. Maybe he needed to digest what was happening or to plot his next move.