NaNoWriMo: Murder in Wilson Park, Chapter 29

“Sure.” Sally spoke before Amanda had even gotten to the table.

“Sure what? I didn’t ask you anything,” said Amanda. In a lot of ways, it was lovely that Sally could read her mind, but it was unnerving at the same time.

“You were going to ask me to do something. I could feel it. What is it? I’m game.” And it was true. Sally was game for anything. Even more so since she’d met Amanda and had become, what, her mind reader? She also felt like Amanda’s protector, guardian angel, mom. Amanda didn’t have a mom, at least not one she could actually find and talk to, but she had a grandmother. So, Sally steered clear of that role. But mom? She could step in there, be a mom.

“I’m thinking about doing some more investigation in the woods. I think there’re a lot of clues out there that nobody’s picked up on,” said Amanda.

“Isn’t that a job for Deputy John or your sweetie and his partner? If the murderer is lurking around, maybe they ought to go find him, not us.” Sally was a brave sort but also aware of her age. Walking three miles a day and spending an hour with chair yoga a couple of times a week didn’t prepare her for chasing murderers through the woods.

“I called Matt a while ago. Told him he should get the cadaver dog team to go into the woods where Joe and I got tripped up on some pipes. I think there’s a connection between Jacob and a kid that went missing ten years ago.”

“And he said what? You’re nuts?”

“Something like that.”

Amanda started to lay out her plan. She told Sally that Joe had tripped on a pipe when they were going down an overgrown trail to the quarry and then she discovered another pipe a few yards away in the thick brush. She thought there could be more pipes and that they could be markers, durable stakes that showed the way to something important.

“Maybe there’s a connection to Renard Green, the foster kid who disappeared. Maybe Jacob and the killer and maybe even Clark, the homeless guy, are all connected to Renard in some way. Don’t you think that could be possible?”

“Possible maybe but kind of unlikely. Why would Jacob, jerk that he was, ever get involved with some foster kid disappearing?”

“I don’t know. I just think something connects all these things. It’s okay. You don’t have to come with me. I’ve got my phone. No big deal.” Amanda tucked her phone in her jacket pocket and turned to go.

Sally jumped up. “Oh no, if you’re going, I’m going. Then we’ve got two phones, right? Especially after that whole deal with Jerky. God knows whether that was real or not, but still…I’m coming.”

After the past few days, Sally was starting to feel like the park, as beautiful and lush and serene that it was, had become a sinister place, full of mysterious people doing terrible things. She wondered if she’d ever just stroll through the park unaware again, oblivious to her surroundings, comfortable in her own skin. What a terrible thing it would be to become afraid all the time. Her whole life was anchored in the belief that she was brave and competent and strong.

Amanda had started to feel like a park ranger. Over the past few days, her familiarity with the park, the woods, the myriad trails, the encampments had blossomed. She’d never again look at a big city park and think it was simple – it was a place teeming with people and history.

“Here’s the quarry trail, Sally, follow me.” Amanda held back the branches that hid the entrance of the trail from the edge of the mowed park lawn. She felt like an old timer on the trail, surefooted and confident. She pointed out the places Sally should avoid, a tree root, a pile of rocks covering a treacherous hole.

“Walk where I walk,” she told Sally. “There’s the first pipe. And then, come over here, there’s the second one. I think…..”

“What’s that? Sally whispered, the alarm in her voice running pins and needles up and down Amanda’s arms.

The music was faint at first. Just thin threads of a flute.

“It’s music from the park, somebody’s car probably.” Amanda moved past the second pipe to look for a third.

“I don’t think so, Amanda. It’s getting louder. Can’t you hear it? Don’t you remember the golf course guy talking about flue music before Jacob was killed?”

Amanda remembered. And she remembered the flute music that was playing before the car plowed on to the sidewalk and killed Clark.

The music got louder. “It’s Vivaldi’s Flute Concerto. I know it from school,” said Amanda, crouching now and whispering. The music seemed to be all around and not coming from one direction. It was impossible to know which way to go but she knew they had to go. They had to run. The killer and the flute were connected. And they were near.

“Sally, run. Run like hell back down the trail. Come on!”

Sally tore off in her ancient sneakers with Amanda close behind her. Somehow, Amanda thought running behind Sally would protect her old friend from harm, that the killer would get her first before attacking her beloved Sally. But the pace was too slow, so Amanda moved up and took Sally’s hand. They would run like hell together, she would pull Sally out of the woods, carry her on her back if she had to. If the murderer was in the woods with them, he would leave empty-handed.

The music got louder.

The black arm swept Sally right off the trail and hurled her into the woods where she landed at the base of hickory tree. Nuts lay scattered at her feet.

Amanda stood stunned, paralyzed, and the man in black grabbed her arm and pulled her down the trail. Now the music was deafening, the lilts and peaks and crescendos ricocheting through the trees. Her arm began to feel detached from her body as if it would be ripped away to fly through the forest and she would be left armless on the ground, bleeding.

Oh God, Oh God, Oh God, Amanda thought. Oh God.

And then the man in black stopped. He dropped Amanda on the ground and pulled a knife from his pocket. Amanda knew that knife. It was the same knife that had killed Jacob. The man in black meant to kill her with a shrimp knife, the same knife he’d used to clean his nails looking out the window of the senior center.

Oh God, Oh God, Oh God.

CRACK! The sound split the music wide open.

Amanda looked up to see Jerky holding a rock over her head ready to crash it into the man in black’s head for the second time. Jerky’s eyes were flaming, the muscles in her thin arms straining to hold the rock up high to bring it down on the man in black’s head for a second time.

“Stop! Don’t kill him. He’s unconscious.”

Jerky looked at Amanda blankly and Amanda remembered, she can’t hear me! Amanda shook her head at Jerky. No more, she tried to say with her body. No more.

The thought of Jerky getting in trouble for killing this man was sickening. Better to get the police back here, Deputy John, somebody to arrest him. And then, at least, we can find out the truth.