Chapter 7

Harry pulled to the front of Stanley Gruber's place after dusk on Saturday night. He hadn’t stopped there in years. A familiar feeling clawed at him as he peered at the place. Pure disgust. He didn't care if the man didn't mow his yard or keep the place in order. No crime in being a slob. But it went beyond that. He was like a disease. Being in the guy’s home was like going to the dentist and having the assistant probe your mouth with a toilet brush.

The morning meeting with the FBI investigators left him in a crotchety mood that got worse as the day went on. They hammered him with all the standard questions, the same ones they asked him with the previous murders. He told them everything he could, which was basically nada. They were professional, but the looks in their eyes was unmistakable. They thought he was incompetent. And soon he’d have to sit through Garrett Tucker’s autopsy. That was enough to rattle anyone’s cage.

He marched through the yard to the faded door and wrapped it with his nightstick, not to be threatening, but because he didn't want to touch anything he didn’t have to. Through the picture window, he spotted the dull television glow emanating through the curtains.

Stanley Gruber cracked the door open and stood there, skinny and greasy as ever.

"Hullo, Chief." His voice cracked somewhere in his scrawny throat. Probably from disuse, Harry thought. Who does this guy have to talk to, anyway? A cigarette propped between his yellow fingers wafted thin strands of smoke around his face, making his eyes tear.

"Stanley." Harry didn’t like saying his name. "Would you mind stepping outside? I'd like to ask you a few questions."

Stanley complied, shoulders sagging in submission. Harry was glad he came out, because otherwise he would have had to go inside the man’s house, and he didn’t know if he could handle it.

"Am I in any kind of trouble?" Stanley drew a deep drag from his cigarette. "I've been good a long time now. I don't want any trouble with the law. I've been good."

"Sure, Stanley." Harry bit back his tongue. Guys like this are never good, and they never get better, no matter how much they tell you they are. They go on thinking what they like to think and doing what they like to do until they get caught again, and when they get caught, they say they had a lapse, an unfortunate slip, the only bad thing done since last time. Harry bought none of it.

"Just wondering what you've been up to lately?" Harry asked.

Stanley's head bobbed up and down in thought. He shuffled his feet. "Like I said, I been bein' good. I guess you need to check up on me every now and then, but I swear I been a good guy lately. I ain't been doin' nothin' wrong around here. Honest."

Honest my ass, you piece of garbage.

"Where were you last night, around seven or eight o'clock?"

Stanley shook a little. "Hey, Chief, this have anything to do with them murders? Cause I ain't got nothin' to do with that, I swear."

"Just shut up and answer the question. Where were you?"

Stanley's crossed his arms and shuffled his feet again. "I went for a walk, sir, that's all. That’s all I was doin’."

"Come on," Harry pushed. "You'll have to do better than that and you know it. Where were you?"

"Chief…"

"Where?"

"All right," Stanley said finally. "I was down at Mrs. VanAcre's place. Ruthie VanAcre."

Harry stepped back from the porch and peered long down the street. Ruth VanAcre's place was only a couple of blocks away and he could almost see it from where he stood. Ruthie VanAcre was a strange bird. She and her husband Mick were a couple of local barflies. He’d once thrown them both in the slammer for drunk and disorderly. Harry needed an extra set of hands to count the number of times he'd been called to the bar in the afternoon to settle them down. The bar owner never pressed any charges since they were such good customers of his. Sad thing was that they had a daughter, Naomi, who was the real victim in all this. And knowing they had a young daughter made Harry suspicious.

"What exactly were you doing there?"

Stanley's feet shuffled faster, so much so that he nearly fell over. Harry knew he was on to something.

“Quit moving your feet,” Harry said. “You’re not going anywhere.”

"Can't you just believe me this once? Do I have to tell you everything? Don't I have the right to be silent and all that?"

"That's only if I arrest you," Harry said. "Do you want me to arrest you?"

"No, sir."

"Then why don't you just go on and tell me exactly what it was you were doing over at the VanAcre residence."

Stanley’s eyes grew frantic. He fought something inside himself, but Harry refused to let up. Those eyes said, please don't make me tell you all this, but when he saw Harry wasn't going to let him off that easy, he sighed.

"I was peeping through their window. But she knows about it, I swear! I pay Ruthie VanAcre twenty bucks a week to let me peep in on her."

"Jesus, Stanley. What if Mick found out about it?"

"Well, Mick knows. He sometimes participates, but I'm not into that. I just want to watch her. He's the one set it up for me. I mean, I don’t have no one, so…" He left the sentence dangle there.

Harry shook his head and marched back through the yard. "I'm going to check it out, and if I find out you're lying, there's going to be hell to pay. You got me?"

"Yes, sir." Stanley slumped. "But I swear it's true. I swear."

Stanley let fly a sigh of relief when Harry got into his car and drove away. Inside his front door, right beside the stopped up heater vent, sat Joe Madsen's shoe.

##

Harry knew he didn't have to check with the VanAcres right away. He knew it the same way he knew there would be a fight at Smokey's bar tonight, or the way he'd find some of the town kids drinking beer down by the tracks behind Sasha’s Laundromat. Stanley Gruber was a disgusting human being, but a killer he was not.

Instead of taking the usual way back to the office, Harry drove up the parkway, past the swings and jungle gym the city installed last year. He spotted the three who had come into his office earlier that day: Joe Madsen, Burt Smith, and Lisa Grant. If he didn't know any better, he’d say they were watching him talk to Gruber. One of them waved, flagging him down, so he stopped and rolled down his window.

"You kids really should be inside about now," he said. "It's getting late."

"Did you talk to him?" Lisa asked. "Did you find anything out?"

Harry set the vehicle in park. "Look. I can't tell you anything about him, but I'll tell you this. Stanley Gruber is not the one doing all of these horrible things, but that doesn't mean he's not someone that can do you harm. I want you to stay away from that man, you hear me? I won’t tell you twice. Stay away from Stanley Gruber. And go home. It's late."

He pulled away, gravel crunching under his tires. Enough said.

"What the hell was that supposed to mean?" Burt asked. "What a bunch of crap."

"I don't know," Joe said, "but this isn't over yet. If The Chief doesn't believe us, then we'll have to prove it to him. I think there's only one way to do it."

Burt pumped his fist when Lisa agreed with three little words. "The boiler room."

##

Joe crept back into his basement through the back door and closed it quietly behind him, making sure his mother wouldn't hear. If she knew he’d snuck out to check up on Gruber, she’d have his head. This nighttime curfew was killing him. He worried about Chief MacGreggor. He watched him speak to Gruber outside his house, but he didn't drag him off to jail. He just got back into his car and drove away.

What the heck is going on? Didn’t The Chief see the obvious?

This was a huge problem, because even The Chief now didn't believe Stanley Gruber was the killer, and if he didn't believe, then what was he supposed to do? He didn't want to do it, but he knew he’d have to do something radical to flush Gruber out into the open, and the only way to do that would involve the school boiler room.

And now, time was short. They had to act fast. Monday, they decided, the sooner the better, the only time available. They would act on Monday morning, during the morning assembly, when nobody would be around to stop them.

##

Sunday morning. Joe’s mother blazed into his room, a whirlwind of glee, shocking him awake. She was humming a short ditty that raked his nerves.

"Time to get up, sleepy head." She yanked his covers off, leaving him chilled and more than a little miffed. It couldn’t be much past seven-thirty, and a Sunday of all times. "Come on. We're going to church."

Church! Why in the world is she taking me to church?

The last time they’d been to church was Christmas two years ago, and even then it was the most boring experience he'd encountered in his life, barely beating out the time before that when he went to church. He couldn’t stand the place, all the Devonshire weirdos in one place, and the way everyone looked down on the Renter's Alley folks. It was especially obvious in church, a place where you'd think people would set aside their petty conceits. Joe imagined the confession booths crammed with Devonshire residents, chanting the same words to the priests, "Forgive me, Father, for I have sinned. I'm a snob and I think I'm better than everyone else in this town, especially those grubs in Renter’s Alley."

The “church attack” overtook his mother every now and then, but more times than most Joe found a way to talk her out of it. For some reason, this morning, he knew arguing would do no good. An air of finality floated about her. It wasn't like she let the idea suddenly pop into her head. When it came to church, it meant she had been mulling the idea for weeks or months until something inside of her snapped and today was the day, dammit, we're going to church. And besides, Joe knew it had everything to do with the murders.

The whole town, he learned, felt the same way, because the church was packed.

The church was only a five-minute walk down the block, bordering the outskirts of Renter's Alley. It was the only place where most of the townsfolk went that sat so close to the alley, and perhaps why everyone was so acutely aware of its location, like an old way station between warring cities.

It was a smallish building but large enough to accommodate a few hundred people, but today the pews were crammed and the walls lined with parishioners, standing room only.

What is this, a baseball game or something? Joe thought, but it wasn't. It was only church, and Devonshire hadn't realized such a swell in church activity since the murders began. Mass started at nine sharp, and he and his mother walked in fifteen minutes early. There was already nowhere to sit. Joe overheard two priests discussing how they might have to start a whole separate mass in the weeks to come for all the new attendees. He followed his mother to the back of the church and leaned against a wall. His mother dipped her fingers into a bowl of holy water and crossed herself with it. He did the same. A jittery woman with poufy hair gave him a nervous side glance. Joe backed away.

What’s to be nervous about in church?

Much, it appeared. Hundreds of eyeballs scanned the room nervously. So many of these people, bitter folks gazing on each other with their bitter thoughts, craning necks to find the new people of the week. Their expressions spoke volumes, especially when they fell onto Joe and his mother. What right did he and his mother have to intrude on this church when they hadn't worshipped in so long?

Joe wondered, wouldn’t they be happy with new people in church? Isn't that the way of religion? Accept your brother with open arms? Their venomous eyes made him feel much differently.

Fear can do that to people.

Joe glanced at his mother. She was dressed in her pretty coffee-colored dress she hadn't worn in two years, and he wondered if she felt what he felt. If she did, she didn’t show it. Instead, she fixed her gaze on the crucifix hanging at the front of the church, mumbling something to herself. No, not mumbling. Praying. She needed to pray, probably had for some time now. A wave of guilt rippled through him. Suddenly the cruel gazes from the rest of the congregation no longer mattered. He touched his mother’s arm to let her know he was there for her.

Finally, after what felt like an eternity, Father Kowalski entered to begin his sermon. Father Kowalski had been around as long as Joe remembered. He hunched over the altar and his face resembled O.J. Simpson. His voice droned with monotony.

Joe nearly nodded off within the first five minutes. Father Kowalski remarked on how happy he was to see so many new faces, and how it is never too late to come into the arms of the Lord. Joe found his eyes wandering over the crowd. He spotted a number of familiar faces, like crazy Mrs. Lanham and Bucky Fasbinder, Chief MacGreggor’s deputy. His English teacher, Ms. Ascot, sat off to the left hidden beneath a bulky flower hat, and the grade school level English teacher, Mrs. Whitley, sat in the back row with a blissful grin. The old lady from across the street, Mrs. Bergin, sat along the aisle, twirling a rosary and mouthing silent prayers to herself. The older folks seemed to be affected the worst by all this.

Father Kowalski droned on and Joe had a hard time concentrating. Just as he thought he might fall asleep on his feet, something made him shudder. It was a blur of movement, calling his attention, and when he looked, the shock of it was a sledgehammer to the chest.

It was his father.

He stood beneath the crucifix, wearing the same work clothes he always wore. His neck flared red, chaffed from his death belt. His eyes swept across the rows of worshippers, those grayish ghost eyes, looking like something that shouldn't exist at all, a pale form of a man lying at the threshold between this world and some other. Joe didn't want to see him but couldn't tear his eyes away. He thought he might cry out but knew he wouldn't be able to.

But then, he surprised himself. Something else burned within, something that helped him push the initial terror away. It was anger.

The anger gave him strength. He hadn’t been able to will his father into visiting him. His father chose when to appear, so Joe had to take action. He scrutinized his father’s ghost. His mouth moved, slowly, as if chewing on something. He was speaking. He uttered something through the silence, and Joe studied it until he realized his father was speaking a single word over and over again.

Stump.

And then his father was gone. He didn’t vanish or fade to nothing. He simply wasn’t there.

Joe finally had direction. Immediately after mass, he left his mother and biked to the forest preserve. He stopped at the tree stump and waited. The cold air clutched at his skin. It smelled of October, of leaves and chilled smoke.

Joe.

The voice startled him. He didn’t feel the presence until that instant. He spun so fast he fell from his bike, and even though he told himself he wouldn’t be afraid, he was.

Looking at the walking corpse of his father tortured him, and even more so when he found himself asking the inevitable question.

“Are you the one killing everyone?”

The spirit shook its head slowly. No.

"Then why are you here?" His voice quivered.

Joe. Hearing the strained pain in his father’s voice was worse than seeing him. I can't keep coming like this. You have to listen. The evil is coming. Soon. It is powerful and hungry. It no longer waits…

"I don't understand." Joe clenched his fists. "If you are real, why are you doing this to me? Why are you so concerned about me now after everything you put me and mom through all those years?"

The spirit winced. His father appeared to cry, although no tears fell.

I’m more sorry than you know, his father said. I was a weak man in the flesh, but I have…been shown my errors. I don’t blame your anger.

Joe bit back revulsion. "Why did you kill yourself?"

If I could take it back, I would. I can never go back. I’ll be paying for it for the remainder of my days.

He began to fade, though not entirely. Listen to me, Joe. I am not the killer. Stanley Gruber is not the one either…but he knows. He knows. There is a demon in Devonshire. It is an old demon. It is a waiting demon, one that has been here for many, many years. It waits until it knows its victims so deeply and intimately before it takes them. The death is so much sweeter to it that way. Get away from Devonshire. Get your mother away. Stay away from Stanley Gruber. Stay away. I am weak…I can't stay here.

"Wait, Dad! Who is it? If it's not Stanley Gruber, then who?"

I don't know…can't see…Joe…

And then he was gone, like in the church. Once again Joe became aware of the biting wind. What should he think of this? Demons? Creatures that lie in wait to kill those it knows best? Under normal circumstances, it might be hard to believe, but considering the source of information, how could he doubt it? How could you not trust a ghost?

His stomach roiled. He leaned over and vomited on the side of the stump. Despite his father's warning, he was more determined than ever to see what was in the boiler room where Stanley Gruber liked to play.

Fine. Stanley Gruber wasn’t the killer, but Stanley Gruber knew about the demon, so logically, that was the only place to begin.