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The janitor’s cubicle and adjoining equipment room at the Mingo Auditorium is in the basement, and eventually Jerry Allison is allowed back in there. The Mingo was locked down by the cops, and forensics people in white Tyvek suits have been through it with their brushes, fingerprint powder, and their Luminol. Three videographers accompanied their every step, photographing it all, including Jerry’s basement hidey-hole.
“Be careful of that,” Jerry said when one of the Tyvek guys bent to examine the ceramic horse on Jerry’s cluttered desk. “It’s a family hair-loom.”
Bullshit, of course. He filched it from Don Gibson’s desk before the cops descended. He always liked that old horsey, that old Trigger.
On the day Holly and Izzy have their lunch in Dingley Park, on his way back to his room, nothing on his mind but the Baby Ruthin his pocket, Jerry stops outside the door. Someone inside says, low: “Where’d you bury her, Daddy?”
Heart beating so hard it thrums in his scrawny neck, Jerry goes into his cubbyhole-sized room. Which is empty. Only the ceramic horse on his desk.
Staring at him.
August 28, 2024