Jack didn’t look surprised. He did look a little relieved to finally hear the truth, however. “I’ve known it was him for a long time… I just didn’t know how it happened.”
“Catherine’s case is going to be closed. It may take a little bit… I’m going to have a ton of paperwork to do…”
“That is a relief.”
DiNolfo had a perplexed look on her face. “Jack, let me ask you a question…”
“Go for it.”
“If you knew it was him, why did you keep her at the school?”
“We don’t have many options up here. It’s either Steeplechase where she could get a solid education or PS 132, which is one of the worst schools in the state. Literally, at the beginning of the school year, P.S. 132 installed metal detectors. When I found out that Kendricks was her English teacher this year, I tried to get her transferred out. In order for her to have a different teacher, she would have to be taken out of AP classes. When she heard, she had a fit,” explained Jack, as his daughter gave him a heated glare. “Not blaming you, I’m just explaining why you were left in his class. I figured she had her brothers in there, Shane, their friend Cole. They all keep an eye out for her. I never in a million years thought anything like this would happen.”
“PS 132 is my alma mater,” explained DiNolfo, feigning embarrassment.
Jack, looking sheepish tried to cover up his previous statement, “I’m sure it was much nicer when you went there,” he said quickly. DiNolfo shook her head and laughed.
“There is one more matter of business that I have not revealed to anyone yet. There is a reason why he was expecting me.”
Jack looking confused but intrigued, perked up. “Why is that?”
“This is not the first time I have had to deal with Bernard Kendricks’ work.”
Jack did a double take. “Wait… what are you talking about?”
“I had a detective in Sunbury run the plates on the car that he took Tristan in. It had Ohio plates, and belonged to an Ernest Finkle. I immediately recognized Finkle’s name from another case. Not from here. In Pittsburgh.”
“Ernie was Kendricks’ step father. He hated him.”
“Hated him enough to kill him. Six months ago, we got a call reporting a disturbance at an apartment in Pittsburgh. He found Ernest Finkle, his girlfriend Patrice Daly, and Allison Finkle, Kendricks’ step-sister, all strangled. That case was brutal. It was the reason I left Pittsburgh. We could never pin it on Kendricks, but he was our major suspect. He murdered them all, just two days after his mother’s death. It must have set him off.”
“Ernie used to beat his mother and him when he was a kid. He hated his guts.”
“This just goes to show how dangerous he truly was.”
“So he wasn’t bluffing when he said he’d kill everyone?” asked Tristan, a grave look on her tired face. DiNolfo, looking sadly into the girl’s face, shook her head no.
*
Joe Piedmonte brought a tray of food to table two, where his son Cole and his friends Tommy, Blake and Shane were gathered in hushed conversation, nervous looks present on their faces. For the first time since his wife had passed away, Joe Piedmonte closed the doors to Monte’s early. He sat there with the boys, making sure they were okay, while he kept the doors locked and the shades drawn.
“Try to relax boys. Everything is going to fine.”
He tried to console them, but it did him no good. “We should have never left them,” Cole said.
“We didn’t know that she was in there alone,” said Tommy.
“We should have checked,” insisted Blake.
Joe shook his head. “No, you boys did exactly what you were supposed to. You came here to safety. We called the authorities. Let them handle it.”
“When can we go back?”
“I think it is best if you stay at my house tonight, then when Jack and Tristan and everyone are back from the hospital, I will take you home,” Joe suggested reasonably.
*
“I don’t need to go back to the hospital!” Jack protested as the paramedics checked out his leg and helped him onto a gurney.
“We understand why you left the hospital, but now we have to take you back to check on that leg, and check on those stitches,” said one of the medics.
“I feel fine. Please, I’m begging you. Do not take me back to St. Benedict’s!”
“We’re going to Grier Mountain. It’s just precautionary to make sure you didn’t aggravate your injuries.”
Jack rolled his eyes as they loaded him and Tristan into the ambulance, both of them thoroughly annoyed but decidedly okay.
Chapter Nineteen
Return to Steeplechase
Elkhart, PA