These Truths

September 11th, 2016. 1:45PM

  Burlwood, Indiana

  Dirt flew around the Malibu in a cyclone as Jake once again sped down Route 4, destination: Bumfuck Burlwood. A long and less than spirited conversation with Father Lovett had yielded three clues that would be of use. The first was a copy of the registration for missing church van, a 1978 Dodge Ram 15-passenger model. The second was the key to said van, which the police had apparently shown no interest in taking. To the priest's knowledge, it was one of only two surviving sets. The other, of course, was the one found on the kitchen table in Chucky's trailer during the execution of the search warrant.

  The third, and perhaps most important clue, was the last known address of Russell "Rusty" Parker, which was twenty-four Confederate Way. Since Jake was largely unfamiliar with the wealthier end of town, he was forced to defer to his GPS for directions. When he punched the address in, he was surprised at the satellite images that appeared at its coordinates. The houses on Confederate Way were all quite large, and many had what appeared to be pools in the yards behind them.

  Father Lovett explained that Rusty was just fifty-one years old when medical concerns forced him to retire in 2001, and he also made it clear that the man hadn't earned a fantastic salary for his work at the church. It was likely that he was living on some combination of disability and retirement benefits earned during his time in the service, and it seemed hard to believe that those measly stipends would afford him the luxury of owning such a lavish property.

  Following the voice commands, Jake turned onto Route 9 as he scrolled through his call log to dial Louie Rambo again. He still wanted the Brougham listing, as well as in depth background checks on Rusty, Daryl and Evander. Knowing Louie held the keys to the kingdom in the form of official access, he was eager to get the wheels turning toward securing that information. As a result, every ring that sounded out through the car speakers without an answer only served to frustrate him. As had happened before, he was dumped unceremoniously into the deputy's unpersonalized voicemail. Suspecting that Ron Boudreaux -- who was, after all, the man's boss -- may've ordered young Rambo not to talk, he didn't bother leaving another message this time. If Louie was willing to play ball, he would reach out himself in one manner or another.

  With a few more miles to ride, Jake decided this would be a good time to give Joseph Blake a call. According to Rambo senior, Blake was the sheriff in Indy when good ol' Rusty allegedly had a run-in with a school boy that sounded a lot like attempted murder on the surface. With Jack Morris being dead, Evander Hughes being in the nut-house and Daryl Lane passing the pressure test of his interrogation, Rusty was starting to look like the most viable suspect of the group when it came to involvement with the murder of Billy Marsh.

  Information about an incident that was more than a little suspicious could help him pin the old title The Butcher Of Burlwood firmly on one Rusty Parker, and that would be huge. Since the killer of little Billy Marsh was obviously familiar with the heinous acts of the nineties in a way that only a perpetrator could be, nailing him on those old cases would lead to thumbing him in the new one.

  The Malibu weaved around the two lane road a bit as Jake dialed the number for Blake that he'd received from Donnell, but there was no traffic nor police so far as his eye could see, so he wasn't worried about drawing any attention. When he pressed the call button, more ringing came through the audio system and sang that familiar song of waiting. This series seemed to drag on just as long as the one that came when he tried Louie, and he was eventually directed to what sounded more like an old fashioned answering machine than a new age voicemail system. This one, at least, was personalized and provided more than a digitized recital of the number he'd called. Somewhat to his surprise, though, it was a young woman's voice that proclaimed you have reached The Carrothers residence, but we are unable to take your call. Please leave a message after the tone, and we'll get back with you as soon as possible.

  "Um, hi," Jake responded to a mechanical sounding chime. "This message is for Joseph Blake. If I've got the wrong number, I'm sorry. My name is Jake Gigu?re, and I have a few questions I'd like to ask Mister Blake about something that happened quite some time ago. If he could return my call, I'd very much appreciate it."

  After leaving his cell number, he ended the call and hoped that he wasn't chasing a ghost that had taken the secrets of past misdeeds to the oblivion of the grave. With nothing else to go on, he simply drove the final few miles to Rusty's home in silence. Anxiety began to build in him just a bit as he considered the idea that he might find someone else living at the address, just as he found someone else at Joseph Blake's phone number. If Rusty's health had been so bad fifteen years ago, what was to say that he wasn't dead himself? If that were the case, the chances of identifying The Butcher of old with new information would begin to look pretty bleak.

  Approaching Confederate Way, Jake slowed and turned left onto it without signaling. The houses on the small court were just as grand as they appeared on his phone, each of them sporting finely landscaped front yards and late model vehicles in their driveways. Scanning the address placards affixed to them, he found number twenty-four tucked back in the corner of the cul-de-sac at the end of the street.

  Inclined to surveil the place discreetly for a moment before diving in, he parked in front of a house a few doors down and retrieved his binoculars from the backseat. Rusty's place wasn't the largest home among the small neighborhood, but it was still a very nice piece of real estate that would likely fetch more on the open market than even the nearly quarter-million dollar Gigu?re family colonial ranch. It was a well kept tri-level, complete with expensive looking masonry and iron work that gave it the air of a prized and regal medieval castle.

  There was no car in the driveway, but a large attached garage was present and may have kept a respectable vehicle hidden from his view. Perhaps, he thought, it would be a 2016 Land Rover, like the one parked next door, that lived in Rusty's garage. Or, instead, perhaps it was a more classic automobile that was protected from the elements just beyond one of the two roll-up doors... maybe it was a 1986 Cadillac Fleetwood Brougham, blue in color... or a 1978 Dodge Ram Van with Our Mother Of Sorrows decals on the side. Since the two bays were closed and there were no view-ports in them, Jake couldn't determine which was the case, or if it was empty altogether. All of the possibilities stirred in his mind's eye, and each set him off on a path of speculation that led him around and around like a carousel of unanswered questions.

  Turning his attention to the house itself, he saw that just about all of the windows were covered with either vertical blinds, which were tightly closed, or draperies that were completely opaque and allowed him no clues as to what, if anything, was going on inside. Watching for any signs of movement, he tried to determine if anyone was home. There were none, so he was faced with a question as to how he should proceed.

  Staking the place out for a few hours seemed like a reasonable thing to do, but he still intended to make a visit to the Our Mother carnival. If he were to watch the house for any significant period of time, he wouldn't be able to actually visit with and question the man inside before he would be forced to return to the church. Plus, it was entirely possible that he wouldn't see anything if he just sat there staring at the place, and that would amount to an enormous waste of precious time.

  If he were to approach the place and simply knock on the door, he would have his answer as to whether or not the resident was still Russell Parker immediately. Once that was clear, he would have ample time to feel him out and take a look around, assuming the man was willing to let him in the house and open to talking about what would certainly be a sore subject. Based on the reaction Daryl Lane expressed when old suspicions were brought to light, the mere mention of the murders might be enough to see Rusty kick him out of the house with extreme prejudice.

  Deciding that time was of the essence, he opted for the more direct route and began for
mulating his plan of attack. Since he was wearing his church garb, complete with suit coat and purple tie, he realized that he might be able to pull an okey-doke to gain access to Rusty and his house. With an unorthodox strategy falling into place in his mind, he reached for his wallet and opened it to the private investigator's badge, which was tucked neatly behind a leather partition with his driver's license. Adjusting the elastic bands that held it in place, he tried to cover as much of the recessed lettering as he could. With a few zigs and zags, he was able to largely cover the text that read private investigator and make the minor-league badge look much like an official police shield.

  Grinning slyly at his trickery, he pulled up into Rusty's driveway and adjusted his hair in the vanity mirror -- for vanity's sake. Clearing his throat and trying to take an official air, he stepped out of the car and marched intently to the front door. Along the way, he adjusted his shoulder holster to be sure he could snatch his Beretta and be ready to fire at a moment's notice. If Rusty was The Butcher, he might not be too pleased to have a visitor of this nature.

  When he stepped onto the porch he saw that there was a doorbell, but ringing it seemed too benign and benevolent for the powerful man of the law he was pretending to be. To increase the intimidation factor, he chose to pound heavily on the ornate wood instead, with his wallet and badge in hand, ready for presentation.

  Initially there was no response, so he beat out another set of knocks and waited a bit longer. Just as he was about to fire a third salvo, the door opened slowly without the sounds of any locks being disengaged beforehand. Apparently, Mister Parker didn't share Daryl Lane's paranoia. When it was eventually opened wide enough to reveal the aged man inside, Jake's heart once again dropped to a place below his knees.

  It was Rusty, but he looked like death warmed over. His hair was virtually absent and fully white where there was enough to make it visible, and his face was gaunt and haggard, like that of a creature from some haunted crypt. He was hunched over as he stood, leaning on a tubular aluminum walker for support and stability. Lifting his head enough to look up at his visitor seemed an incredible chore, and the effort was obvious in his wheezy and heavy breathing. With the presentation of his face came the discovery of a thin plastic tube draped over either of his ears. The two ends of it came together in a nasal cannula that was seemingly irritating the flesh of his upper lip, painting it red and chaffed in a hue of discomfort. There was condensate and a haze of gas in the line, and the bassy rumble of an oxygen machine operating somewhere nearby within the house confirmed what was plainly obvious even without it... this man was gravely ill.

  "Yes?" he said with liquid congestion bubbling in his chest.

  Again the cone of cold feeling swept through Jake's body, just as it had when he stepped into Daryl Lane's cooler. It wasn't inspired by any actual change in temperature, just as it hadn't been before. It was a symptom of stunning revelation, a physical manifestation of devastating realization. Just as the cold room of Butcher's Lane was well suited to host slaughter, the Rusty Parker of 2016 was more feeble and fragile than even Father Lovett had proven to be.

  "Uh," Jake stammered, trying to quell the storm of doubt raging in his mind. "Good afternoon, Mister Parker."

  Rusty lifted his eyes a bit further to take a better look at him with the mention of his name, likely wondering who this stranger was and why he was pounding at his door on a Sunday afternoon. Falling back to his plan, Jake opened his wallet and exposed his badge. Taking a deep breath, he tried to steady himself before speaking.

  "I'm a detective with The Elsmere County Sheriff's Department, would you mind if I came inside and asked you a few questions?"

  "Questions?" Rusty gurgled, coughing to clear his lungs. "What for?"

  "I'm investigating a stolen vehicle," Jake replied, not showing his hand and quickly closing his wallet to dissuade further inspection of his badge. "The van from Our Mother Of Sorrows has gone missing. Father Lovett tells me that you used to drive it a lot, I was hoping you could tell me a bit about it so I know exactly what I'm looking for."

  Coughing again, Rusty looked disturbed. "Is this about that dead kid?" he asked accusingly. "Because if it is, I don't know nothin' about it!"

  "No," Jake lied again, his heart pumping at the idea that Ron Boudreaux may well have primed him too. "I'm just looking for the van."

  "Who are you?" the old man inquired, agitated and growing visibly fatigued by holding himself up on the walker.

  "As I said, I'm a detective with the --"

  "Detective who?" Rusty interrupted.

  Frozen by the question, Jake feared this was an indication that the sheriff had, indeed, paid a visit to Confederate Way. Considering himself lucky that Rusty apparently didn't recognize him if he had been warned, he hurriedly tried to cook up a pseudonym to further conceal his identity. Pressured and on the spot, nothing came easily to his churning mind. Afraid that his hesitation would give him away, he promptly spit out the first combination that broke through the chaos.

  "Enrico Palazzo," he answered, instantly mortified when the words left his lips.

  Rusty didn't seem phased, the reference outwardly lost on him. Seemingly too weak or simply unwilling to say anything else, he opened the door a little wider and turned his walker to head inside. Taking it as an invitation, Jake followed him through the entryway and into a sparsely decorated living area.

  The floor appeared to be genuine hardwood, the furnishings were leather and the television mounted on the wall looked to be a sixty inch or better brand name LED model. Just off the living space was an equally rich looking kitchen, complete with granite counter tops and stainless steel appliances. Somehow, through some mysterious means, Rusty Parker had evidently landed quite comfortably on his feet.

  The old man slid his walker across the floor until he was in range of a love seat, which he then lowered himself into gently. Stepping fully into the room, Jake saw the compressor that was the source of the humming in a far corner with an oxygen tank standing at its side. Hooked to the front of the machine was a tube that coiled its way along the floor until it eventually lifted up to meet Rusty where he sat. Estimating roughly, he guessed that the total length of the hose was no more than a hundred feet or so. Next to the device was a small table with all sorts of medical supplies. There was gauze, tubes of lotions, inhalers, what appeared to be IV supplies as well as wrapped syringes and vials of injectable medications.

  His curiosity peaked, Jake walked over to the table and spun the vials to read their labels. How convenient would it be, he thought, if one of them declared that the contents were Xylazine or Halozine, the preferred elixirs of The Butcher. To his disappointment, the labels on each and every bottle said either Aminophylline, Methylprednisolone or Morphine. The latter was pretty obvious, but the first two were mystery to him. Looking over the slew of inhalers, he saw familiar words like Advair, Symbicort and Proair, so he paid them little mind.

  Given the combination of these medications and the oxygen machine, it didn't take much sleuthing to determine that Rusty had some pretty serious breathing issues. The fact that several of the labels read Home Hospice meant that his condition was more than simply severe. Whatever it was that ailed the man in his old age, it was expected to be terminal.

  "The van isn't over there," Rusty coughed, looking at him damningly.

  Picking up on his irritation, Jake lingered longer than was necessary to establish the fact that he was in control and didn't give a fuck how Rusty felt. Standing near the kitchen, he surveyed that space as well. Everything was immaculately clean, every surface shining with no signs of rubbish or clutter lying about. There was, however, a small grouping of papers and envelopes on the dining room table in the distance. Intending to check them out before he left, he made a mental note as he slowly strolled toward the couch and planted himself in it authoritatively. Locking his eyes on the old man intensely, he prepared to thrust his recta
l probe in.

  "Looks like you're pretty sick, Mister Parker," he remarked coldly.

  "Gee, you think so?" the man fired back.

  "May I ask what troubles you?"

  "Death troubles me!" he answered, hacking out a few additional hunks of lung.

  Jake raised an eyebrow, amused at the indignation. "Fair enough," he replied, showing no remorse. "Well, Mister Parker, as I said, I'm looking in to the disappearance of the church van. It was last seen in the lot of Our Mother on the morning of Sunday, July 24th. Just for my own information, do you recall where you were and what you were doing on that date?"

  Rusty cackled painfully, putting his hand to his chest as mucous rattled and bubbled. There was a hint of a devious grin on his face as he composed himself and replied. "If I remember right, I was within eighty feet of that thing," he said, pointing to the compressor. "And as for what I was doing, I was probably sitting here dying!"

  Realizing there was no effable rebuttal, Jake nodded in reply. His mouth fell open to continue the questioning, but his brain fed it no words to speak aloud. He was at a loss, as it was pretty clear that the old man was in no condition to be snatching feisty little children from the Our Mother Sunday School. Given his frailty, there was little chance that he'd been the one to hang Billy Marsh upside down by his ankles. He probably didn't have the lung capacity to have cried out bismillah or the strength and dexterity to pull a blade across an innocent neck. He hadn't likely run a small body through a bandsaw, hadn't hauled the remains to Booger Woods and disposed of them, hadn't driven the van off into oblivion and hoofed it back home. If he was the original Butcher Of Burlwood, the six victims he claimed in the nineties were the only ones he could take full credit for, as he was in no condition to subdue and murder an ant -- let alone a fully capable child.

  Closing his mouth without saying a thing, Jake stood up and turned his back to the man, running his hands through his hair to frazzle it the way that he was frazzled. He couldn't afford for this to be happening, he needed Rusty to fit the mold and wear the crown of thorns reserved for the killer of the Marsh boy. If he were to concede that the slipper didn't fit, he was left with only Evander Hughes, Daryl Lane or some random copycat that would likely never be found and fingered. There weren't any clues to lead him to some unidentified assailant, there was no trail to follow to identify a new player in the game.

  Frustrated and pissed, he intertwined his fingers and locked his hands behind his neck as a heavy sigh spilled through his clenched lips. Subconsciously, he started pacing back and forth between the threshold of the kitchen and the backside of the couch. Rusty was watching him with a look of disinterest on his face, his chest rising and falling sharply with his labored breathing speaking in crackles. The shell of a man was winning this exchange without speaking a single word to clear his name, and that was unacceptable. Totally confused about how to proceed, Jake decided to call a timeout to allow him time to gather his thoughts.

  "Do you mind if I take a look around?" he asked, hoping his desperation wasn't as detectable as he feared it was.

  Rusty shrugged dismissively, which was permission enough in the moment. He stayed put on the love seat as Jake walked through the kitchen to a corridor that he figured should have an entrance to the garage, which could've concealed dark secrets. If the Cadillac or the van were in there, he wouldn't need to struggle in verbally digging out any further proof of Rusty's involvement in the Marsh case. There would be some seriously tough questions to answer about how he'd managed to pull it off, but he could be locked in as, at very least, an accomplice with knowledge to be beaten out of him. With the evidence in hand, that could be done either literally or figuratively, depending on his preference and how charitable either Jake or Ron Boudreaux were feeling.

  Checking the first of three doors along the hallway, he found a large and beautiful bathroom complete with whirlpool tub and seperate stand-up shower. Seeing nothing of interest inside, he moved to the second door and found a walk-in closet. There was little inside, just a few jackets and old pairs of shoes. The thought of checking the shoes for foreign soil or blood occurred to him, but he was more interested in finding the vehicles, so he waived it off for the time being.

  Behind the third and final door was, in fact, the garage. It was dark, as all of the interior lights were off and he couldn't immediately find a switch to flip them on. Longing to find something, to find anything that even resembled suspicious, he stepped down two stairs blindly and his shoes clicked onto the painted floor of the space. The noise echoed in what seemed to be vast emptiness, as did each step he took further inside. Feeling along the wall for a switch, his hand fell upon a plastic button, which he promptly pressed. In response, the nearer of the two bay doors opened up to Confederate way, letting all of the natural light spill in and break the darkness partially. While he couldn't see every nook and cranny of the darkened far side, the sudden illumination revealed beyond a doubt that there were no vehicles inside the place at all. What was more, there was no odor of oil or motor fluids, nor any stains on the ground or any other tangible indication that an automobile had been stored there recently.

  Looking around where the ambience of the sun made it possible to see, he noted that there were several large upright toolboxes, each looking brand new and hardly used. Turning every stone, he opened every drawer and saw a variety of Craftsman hand tools that also seemed new and barely used. Nothing about the place was suspect, nothing out of the ordinary. Refusing to give up, he walked every inch and inspected every recess. Much of the far side was still dimly lit, as the second door was still down and preventing any further sunlight from painting the perimeter.

  Tracing the wall with his hand where the gradient of light morphed from white to black, he ended up in the back corner of the room where he nearly walked directly into the perpendicular wall. Feeling a sense that something was hanging above his head, he raised his arms and ended up with a handful of rubberized and coiled wire. It was of a thick gauge and stretched when he pulled down on it, an action that caused something heavy to strike him on the top of the head enough to wake him up a bit.

  Reaching for the object, he found it to be a rectangular control box of some sort. There were several large buttons, so he pressed one at random. A loud mechanical whine and grinding sounded out when he did, and suddenly the coiled cord was being pulled toward the center of the room and stretching. Not wanting to let it be ripped from his hands, he walked along in pace with the movement until he was in a spot where the machinery was exposed to light. Releasing the button stopped the motion, and he was able to examine the contraption.

  Looking up to it hanging from the ceiling, Jake realized that it was a fairly hefty and likely expensive engine hoist. Moving it had brought an I-beam into view that seemed to stretch from one end of the garage to the other. Traveling along it, connected to the control pad and coil of cable, was the hoist itself. It was comprised of a red metal box with a motor inside from which a heavy metal hook was swinging. It was too high for him to reach, so he experimented with the control pad until he eventually found a button that caused the hook to descend. A thick chain to which it was attached came with it, as did another dramatic realization.

  Hoping for further support of a hypothesis developing in his mind, he looked down to the floor and scanned it throughly. At first, he didn't find exactly what he was looking for. If it were there, it would likely be in the center of the room, an area where the light didn't color the ground to allow visual inspection. Examining the walls that were visible, he tried to locate a light switch with to no avail. Releasing the control box and taking a step into the darkness with a mind to seek it out blindly, he felt his cellphone shifting in his pants pocket as though it were being brought to his attention by divine intervention.

  Feeling a bit like an ass for not having thought of it sooner, he retrieved it and flipped through the apps until he found the flashlight. When
it sprang to life with blinding brightness, he turned it to the ground and panned from side to side until he saw what he was looking for. It was there, just as he suspected it would be. His mind demanding confirmation, he refused to acknowledge the possibility that it could be used as he imagined until he put it to the acid test.

  Walking back into the light, he grabbed the control box of the hoist and played with it until he figured out exactly how to move it around the garage as he desired. After a few seconds of trial and error, he mastered its operation and had the device positioned exactly where he needed it to be... directly above and perfectly aligned with the drain that he'd discovered in the floor.

  Yes, the scenario playing in his head was possible. This device, this hoist, was capable of holding in suspension something as heavy as a vehicle's engine as it was drained of oil and fluids over the receptacle in the floor. Or, more relevantly, it could've hung something as comparatively light as the body of a child. Yes, they could've been chained to -- and dangling from -- that hook, held high over the concrete as blood spilled from their necks like a cascade of organic water in the throes and undulations of some twisted tranquility fountain. Their essence could've flowed into the city sewer from this place, this den of murder and destruction.

  But then what?

  How would they have been handled from there?

  There would need to be a saw, something to take them apart with so that they were in manageable and inconspicuous segments. Turning his phone back up to eye level, he scanned the darkness with its ray of white in search of any such implement. Not far from where the hoist had been parked was waist-high square table with wheels at its bottom, which he determined required closer examination.

  Stepping to it, Jake realized that it was no ordinary table, nor was it another toolbox facing the wrong direction. It was a table saw, and much of it was missing. The top surface was simply a flat sheet of metal, void of any guards, void of any safety shields, void of a blade or any cutting mechanism. Where those things should've been, there were only grooves and channels in the steel. Inspecting them, it became obvious that the blade this tool was intended to host was of the circular variety.

  They wouldn't rule out a circular saw with a very fine toothed blade, the voice of Clyde Rambo spoke to him again, and the words were deafening in his ears. This place could've been the lair of The Butcher Of Burlwood just as well as Daryl Lane's place of business could have, but that still didn't explain how such a fragile old man could've had anything to do with the murder of little Billy Marsh.

  The revelations of this room presented more questions than they provided answers, but the questions gave him fresh hope where the old was decomposing. The fact that the blade was missing was very suspicious, but he was going to have to build something on that suspicion. He was going to have to build a prison cell for Rusty Parker, and that was going to take effort. It was going to take cunning, it was going to take tireless investigation, and it was going to take indeterminate discovery of mysterious facts. It was going to take time, and that was difficult to digest with double indemnity still a factor.

  Tempted to hurry inside and shine the bright light of interrogation in Rusty's face, he fought back his desire to go in like the three hundred pound gorilla as he had with Daryl Lane. Showing his cards to this man would likely go much differently than things had the night before, and he might quickly find himself unwelcome in this particular house when the chips were down. If Boudreaux had prepped Rusty, he might even find himself locked in shackles should the old man call in the cavalry to reveal his chicanery. He was going to have to handle this one with kid gloves, no matter how powerful the desire to confront the potential killer was.

  Taking several deep breaths, he calmed himself before stepping back into the hallway of the house. Instead of reporting directly to the living area, he resolved to double back and have a look at those papers on the table in the kitchen. When he got there, he looked up and saw that Rusty had fallen asleep where he sat on the love seat. He would've passed for dead if not for his continued heavy wheezing, and boy would that have royally screwed the pooch.

  His unconsciousness was a window of opportunity that Jake intended to fully exploit, as it allowed him to thoroughly examine the loose pages strewn about the table. Most of them were benefits statements from social security and the department of veterans affairs, one of which identified his condition as stage four chronic obstructive pulmonary disease. Nothing else among them was of interest, so after scanning them he simply returned them to the pile and tried to mask the fact that he'd been snooping.

  His strategy changed quickly, however, when he saw a familiar string of characters on one of three unopened envelopes set off to the side of the table. Hardly believing it was possible, Jake lifted the letter to confirm for his own peace of mind that he wasn't wishfully seeing things. His eyes assured him that he was not as he examined the blue logo on the envelope over, and over, and over again. This letter, addressed to Rusty Parker at twenty-four Confederate Way, was from FGSI Services, PO Box 65, Blackmoor, Indiana.

  Not bothering to check who the other two unopened letters were from, Jake stuffed them all hastily into a pocket inside of his suit coat. This action sealed the deal on any further questioning, as he couldn't afford to wake Rusty up and risk having him discover what he'd done. Moving quietly, he crept to the front door and prepared to make his exit with stealth.

  Just as he was about to leave, though, something hanging on the wall beside the door caught his attention. It was a wooden rectangle stained a dark and rich mahogany hue, and several small hooks we're screwed into it along its center. Hanging from them were several keys, one of which looked terribly familiar. At the top of the shaft was a pentagon that any red blooded American could easily identify. This key belonged to a Dodge vehicle, and the lack of a rubber coating meant that it was one of vintage... perhaps even of 1978, a particularly good year, in this context and situation. Snatching it from its resting place, he stuffed it into his pants pocket and silently left the home with a good deal more to work with than he had upon his entry.

  THIRTY-TWO