Dingo joined him. “I’m a husky boy, so yeah. Sleeves might be a little short.”
Deloy held a shirt in front of his bare chest. “These are your clothes?”
“Yes. And some of them aren’t that old either. Oh God, I remember this T-shirt!”
Finally letting my grip loose, I stuffed the bowtie ends into Pratt’s fucking mouth. He’d gone to spirit prison, that place in between heaven and hell, a sort of limbo for amoral assholes. I wandered over to the maple tree. “Really? Metallica?”
Dingo nodded with pride. “Peace, love, and metal.”
Sledgehammer ambled over, stepping over the prone body. “Really? I always sort of liked them. They still around?”
I told Dingo, “I didn’t have you pegged as a metalhead. The cargo pants and sweater vests, for one thing.”
Dingo took offense. “I haven’t worn a sweater vest since getting this cut! That would be redundant to put a leather vest on over a wool vest.”
Gideon nodded. “Not to mention bulky.”
The men argued the sartorial merits of the various looks. I knew what they were doing. They were deflating the tension from the scene. It was their way of comforting Deloy, and possibly Dingo, although he only seemed concerned about his drone.
Suddenly their words all became a blur, like the teachers yammering in Peanuts cartoons. Oaklyn peeked her head around the corner, stunning me. It seemed so incongruous, the scene before me. The mayor sprawled in the fallen leaves, as dead as Scrooge’s partner. How long had she been there? Had she seen me actually doing the deed? It seemed to only take me three long strides, and she was in my arms.
“My little lamb,” I murmured, running my lips over the crown of her head. I crushed her upper arms in my hands, probably hurting her, but she just whimpered with what seemed like relief. “God, I love you. I love you with my whole heart and soul, woman.”
Then I shut up. Had I really just said that? It was the drug talking, the Rohypnol. It was making me blather my innermost feelings! I kissed her forehead over and over, as if to erase my radical words.
“I suspected you loved me,” she said, “when I said it to you and you didn’t answer.”
I seriously had no recollection of that. I suddenly had no recollection of anything that happened before I woke up zip-tied to the little kid’s desk. “Wait a second.” I did recall Pratt throwing my shirt and cut into a pile somewhere. I found them, none the worse for the wear. Flinging the disgusting football jersey aside, I shrugged into my cut and stuck my shirt like a bandanna into my back jeans pocket. Then I went and yanked the shuriken from Pratt’s neck. Gideon had wiped all prints from the pistol and placed it back near Pratt’s hand.
He asked me, “Nothing else in there that can tie you to this place?”
“I don’t think so.”
We looked inside the classroom anyway. “Never a dull moment around these whackamole fundies,” said Gideon, looking at the cuffs dangling from the ceiling. “It’s gonna be a long hard row to hoe, going up against these severely challenged people.”
“Well, there’s one less to deal with,” I said. “Maximus will be a shoo-in for the mayoral slot.”
Gideon laughed bitterly. “Ah, they’ll just stick some other fundy in Pratt’s place.”
Dingo’s face was at the door. “Can we get the hell out of here? Not to sound like a feeble baby, but being back here is giving me the dry heaves.”
“Sure enough,” said Gideon.
“We just leave the body here?” I asked as we took our leave.
Gideon shrugged. “Sure, why not? He’ll be found right away, probably by Atticus Rosenkohl or his deputy, because his truck’s here. They’ll cover it all up since it’s obvious it had something to do with a kid hanging from the ceiling in cuffs. If they try to pin anything on us, we’ve got the video. That’s how shit works out here. People are so busy covering their own embarrassing tracks, justice is never served.”
“I think justice just was served,” said Deloy as we took our leave of the school.
I cradled Oaklyn under my arm as we walked. Mahalia was there, holding Lazarus’ leash. I took the leash from her. It wasn’t right to discuss business in front of women, so we discussed safe topics.
“What were you thinking of doing for dinner?”
Oaklyn shrugged. “You’re famous for making some kind of roast, aren’t you?”
“Oh!” cried Deloy. He was going to ride bitch behind Gideon, and he straddled the saddle. “Your roast beef with Yukon gold potatoes and carrots.”
Oaklyn pointed at him. “That’s it. Famous for it.”