Amateur Hour

He had only realized that the ladder was still in the rectory, as Lisa was helping him load the plywood; a couple of weathered but still sturdy pieces he’d been lucky to find. Had he asked her for the key, she would have insisted on going along.

Tuck grunted a laugh to himself, now. He hoped one of his buddies didn’t come along and bust him for illegal entry. Wouldn’t that be fun to explain, not only to Lisa, but to the rest of his family?

The late afternoon sun began to peek out from behind the fast moving clouds. Oh, yeah—it was going to get cold, all right. Good thing the horses were already in, and under blankets. His stomach growled, reminding him that he hadn’t had lunch. He’d grab a snack, on the way home, he decided.

The rectory was a small building. Tuck had seen larger double-wide trailers, in fact, but it seemed to loom at him, as he pulled into the parking lot, making the much larger church building look smaller, somehow. He pocketed his keys, got out and drew on his gloves.

The shards of glass grated under his work boots, as he pulled the plywood out and carried it to the windows. On his next trip, he got his cordless drill driver and the screws—and a hammer. There were still remnants of glass clinging to the two frames in each window, and he’d have to clear at least one of them.

When he was satisfied that he could clamber through one of the windows without laying his back open, Tuck eased himself into the bedroom. There was the ladder, on its side, by the opposite wall. And, there was the cover to the cellar, still lying on the floor, out of place. He had been in such a hurry to get himself and Lisa out of there this morning that he hadn’t thought to spare a moment to replace it.

He did so now, with a passing thought of installing screws into it, as well. The more he thought about it, the better the idea seemed. He’d shove the ladder out, first, then get his drill driver and secure the hatch. It would take a little longer to remove it, later, but it would be a fair trade off.

It hadn’t been an easy job, mounting the plywood, by himself, but at last it was done. Tuck climbed down the ladder and tugged on the board. Nice and secure, just like the other one. Nice and secure…

Tuck frowned, feeling like he had forgotten to do something. The power? He found the box and flipped the main switch. In a moment, Lisa’s HVAC system rumbled to life, pumping heat into the house. This was satisfying, yet it didn’t assuage the niggling doubt he had, about having forgotten something.

He lowered the extension ladder, and slipped it behind the shrubs along the church side of the rectory. Imperfect cover, in this season, but it would have to do, unless he wanted to tote it into the church, and he didn’t. He was tired, and the headache was threatening to return. Why was he so tired?

The Judge’s words about his being a tasty meal for the dark presence inside the house, came back to him. He hadn’t been in the house, for very long, though. Just long enough to drop the cover over the cellar opening, and shove the ladder out the window— The cellar cover. He’d intended to secure it with screws. It had been in the forefront of his mind, even as he was wrestling with the ladder, and then…

And then, what? Tuck leaned hard against the rectory wall. And then he had found himself checking the last of his handiwork, to make sure it was going to hold up, for a day or two.

He scrubbed his face, with a gloved hand. Not only had he forgotten something, he had forgotten everything. The thought made him sick, and he did bend over to retch, but nothing came up, save for a bit of stomach acid. His stomach felt like his intestines had migrated upward, to twine around it like a snake.

It was later than it should be, he realized. Of course it was, because that’s what happened when you lost time, wasn’t it? He had to get home, before someone sent out a search party. Slowly, Tuck pushed himself away from the wall, and stood upright. His knees felt a bit wobbly, but he thought he could make it to the Jeep.

He was about to start the engine, when he spotted his driver drill, in all its orange glory despite the fading light, sitting on the ground under the window. It seemed like too much effort to retrieve it, but he unbuckled his seatbelt and went after it, anyway.

**********************************

Something was wrong. Lisa realized it, the instant she saw him. So, for that matter, did Nickie. The border collie’s usual excitement to see her human went from a whine for attention, to a soft puzzled growl, when Tuck reached down, to pet her. Gillie, too, was standoffish.

“What ails you two?” Tuck laughed. “Do I smell funny, or something?”

“You look funny,” Lisa blurted. And, yes, he did smell funny. Tuck had had at least one beer. Tuck, who didn’t approve of people who drove under the influence.

“Funnier than usual?” Tuck smiled, trying to pass it off as a joke, but she could tell he wasn’t amused. “Are the kids gone, already?”

“They just left. I’m surprised you didn’t see them, on the road.”

“I made a stop at the convenience store. They probably passed by when I was inside,” he shrugged.

“Toni left you a plate. It’s in the microwave.” Lisa felt like she was reciting lines from a script, watching him and listening for cues. Where had this sense of unreality come from?

“Good. I’m starving.”

“Sit down, and I’ll warm it up, for you. Tea?”

“You know, I think I’ll have a beer, tonight. Big, tough construction guy, and all that,” he grinned. “I’ll get it,” he added, when she made a step toward the refrigerator.

Lisa nodded, and opened the microwave, to remove the aluminum foil that covered the plate.

“The plywood is up, and the power is on,” Tuck announced, taking his usual seat, at the table. “Your heater kicked on, before I left.”

“Thanks, Deputy.” The endearment felt forced. “I feel like I should have gone along to help. It couldn’t have been easy, supporting the boards and trying to anchor them, at the same time.”

“It wasn’t too hard,” he shrugged, and took a good pull from his bottle. “Took longer than I expected, though. Sorry about that.”

“No, it’s fine—I was starting to worry a little, but…It’s fine,” she repeated. The microwave beeped, and she removed the plate. She set it in front of him, and he smiled his thanks.

“Why don’t you light, little fly?” he asked.

She did. It occurred to her that there was an actor in the room, and it wasn’t herself. She was just an understudy, trying to keep up with the male lead. Surely, it was her imagination that made her think that there had been a hint of malice, in the ‘little fly’ comment. It hadn’t sounded like Tucker Rawlings, at all.

It wasn’t like him, either, to rearrange the cutlery, before he ate. Typically, Tuck just picked up whichever utensil he was looking for, and used it.

“Am I to dine in silence?” he asked, looking up from the roll he was buttering. “What did you do, this afternoon?” He wasn’t inviting conversation. He was requesting entertainment.

“Well, it was a quiet afternoon, I guess. I helped Toni feed the goats, and tried my hand at milking, which frustrated me a little, and the goat more. It amused Toni, though. Then, I helped Will feed the horses. We also gave them bot fly treatment, and that was fun. Luna doesn’t like the taste, but I thought Buckshot might ask for more.”

“Peculiar animal,” Tuck remarked. He studied his knife, for a moment, before cutting into his pork chop, with it.

“Is it dirty?”

“No, it’s clean. Then, what?” he prompted.

“Not much. We had dinner. The kids went off to their closing performance—there’s a cast party afterward, by the way, so they’ll be late getting home.”

“And you waited for me, keeping the home fires burning,” he smiled.

Lisa nodded, and reached up to touch her pendant, worrying it between her right thumb and index finger. She thought she detected a hint of mockery, in his comment. She had to be imagining it.

He was staring at her thumb, looking slightly disgusted and yet amused. She had taken the bandage off, to allow it to get some air. It wasn’t a thing of beauty, she had to admit.

“Shouldn’t that be covered up, still?” he asked.

“Probably. It was itching a little, and I thought some air might help it. Sorry—I forgot how gross it looks.” She dropped her hand into her lap, to hide the offending digit.

There was something sickeningly familiar about this—all of it. He was beginning to remind her of someone she used to know and spent years trying to forget. This just wasn’t Tuck, somehow. It wasn’t even Tuck after a couple of beers. Tuck, after a couple of beers was mellow and expansive; willing to listen, but also willing to put in his two cents, usually in some humorous way.

This person…

“You should re-bandage it, before it gets infected.” He turned his attention back to his meal.

She was dismissed, apparently. Lisa rose and all but fled to her room. As an afterthought, she locked the door. For a moment, she sat on the edge of her bed, perplexed, and almost scared. On impulse, she pulled out her phone and dialed Liam.

“Liam Miles’ phone,” a familiar female voice answered.

“Hi, Janice.” She tried not to sound disappointed.

“Lisa! Good to hear your voice.”

“Yours, too. Janice, is Liam available?”

“He’s asleep; he had a colonoscopy, this afternoon, and crashed right after dinner. I can wake him, though.”

“No, don’t. It was silly of me to call, anyway.”

“Something’s wrong, then.”

“No—“

“Yes, or you would have just said you’d talk to him tomorrow, and then shot the shit with me, for a few minutes.”

“I’m just having an attack of the vapors,” Lisa said, with a sigh.

“What about?”

“Tuck’s just being weird. Or, I think he’s being weird. The latter, most likely. I don’t even know why I called Liam. It would take too long to go into, anyway.”

“Give me a sketch, then.”

Lisa thought about it, then started with broken windows that needed to be covered, omitting how they had come to be broken, and everything else that had happened in the house, prior to that.

“There’s more,” she admitted at the end of her tale, “but it would just take too long to go into, right now.”

“Can you leave?” Janice asked.

The question surprised her. She had been sure Janice would confirm that she was reading too much into Tuck’s strange behavior.

“You think I should?” Lisa countered.

“I’ve seen Tucker after a few beers. He doesn’t act the way you describe him acting, this evening. Something’s off. You know that, and that’s why you called. Yes, I think you should leave, if that’s what your instincts are telling you to do. Go down the stairs, get your keys, get in your car, and go. Call me when you’re safe.”

“My keys are in my jacket pocket, but my wallet is in my bag, in the kitchen.”

“Just call me. I’ll give the motel my credit card number. Just go, now.”

Janice hung up, then, and Lisa got to her feet. She opened her door quietly, and stepped out onto the gallery. The sight of Tuck, coming up the stairs, made her feel faint with apprehension.

“There you are. I thought you might need some help with your bandage.”

“No, thank you. I’m leaving.”

“Without your dog?” His little smile was chilling.

“Where is he?” she fought to keep her voice calm.

“He’s fine. You don’t think I’d hurt him, do you?”

“I don’t know what you’d do.”

“Now, what does that mean?” He took a step toward her. “My dear, your behavior has been erratic, to say the least, since I got here.” Two more steps. The very cadence of his voice had changed, along with his turn of phrase, she realized. The drawl was more pronounced. “You look at me as if I were a stranger, when you know who I am.” He had advanced until he was right in front of her, on the gallery, now. Too close. If she tried to run for the stairs at the other end of the gallery, he’d have her, before she taken two steps.

“I know who you are,” she confirmed. “What do you want?”

He threw his head back and laughed.

“My dear, I want so few things, really. I want out of the box. I want a decent burial, next to my beloved wife. I don’t want this,” he fingered the pendant that lay just at the cleft of her breasts. “You may keep that, to remember me by.”

Lisa slapped his hand away, with a vicious energy, and he laughed again.

“I had forgotten some of the sensations belonging to the physical body,” he smiled. “The sting of a slap, for example.”

His hands came down on her shoulders. The touch wasn’t Tuck’s casual caress, but a grip like steel. It tightened as he dodged her attempt to knee his groin.

“But, not that sensation,” he grinned. “That one, I remember well.”

“You’re hurting me.”

“Then, I have your attention. I would never hurt your dog, Lisa. But, I could kill Tucker, very easily, and not without a some pleasure. He is of Gerry’s line, after all.”

Lisa’s blood turned to ice water.

He won’t kill his hostage.

That was the Judge’s voice, clear as a bell.

“A real Lovejoy, you mean?” Lisa asked, wondering what lack of good sense had allowed her to say this. Antagonizing Noah was probably not the best tactic.

“Alas, not real enough. Had your beloved Tucker been born with the name, my sister in law’s little curse would have eliminated him, long ago. That did not turn out, as she would have liked, I fear. I escaped it, as did Gerry.”

“Did you? How old were your sons, when they died?”

The being in Tuck’s body snarled, and slammed her against the wall.

“Beatrice had a smart mouth, just like you.”

“You’re vile, for the record. But none of this is necessary. Nothing would please me more than to get your rotting corpse out of my house. I’ll bury it, anywhere you want me to bury it. After you’ve let Tuck go.”

“I’ll let Tucker come back. But, he fits me so well. Like a tailored glove, almost. And, I do enjoy feeling things again. I think I’ll just stay with him, until I’m satisfied.”

“Satisfied,” she repeated.

“I’m a reasonable man,” he grinned as though acknowledging the lie for what it was. “As long as you work toward my ends, Tucker is safe. I do have eternity, after all, and you don’t. I’ll even promise not to harm Toni or her whelp, which would be so easy to do. I am now a veritable wolf in sheep’s clothing, you see.”

“If you touch Toni—“

“I said I wouldn’t, as long as you hold up your end of the agreement.” He released her shoulders, which had begun to ache, stepped back, and extended his right hand.

Lisa laughed angrily. “You think you’re in a position to offer me a ‘gentleman’s agreement’?”

“You could be right. I am certainly no gentleman, as Tucker Rawlings would define one, am I? Perhaps we’ll seal the deal this way, then.”

The pressure of his mouth on hers was bruising, and she tasted blood from where her own teeth cut her. The wall at her back gave extra power to her shove, and as he stumbled backward, Lisa reared back with her right hand and slapped him with all of her might.

The strike connected with a crack that sounded immense, to her ears. Too late, she realized that she was hitting Tuck. Noah had gone.

Tuck’s head rocked to one side, under the force of the blow. Lisa was halfway down the stairs before he recovered enough to call after her.

“Lisa—I’m so sorry—“ He started after her, cautiously. “Lisa, please—“

“Where’s my dog?” she growled up at him, from the floor below, her eyes blazing and her breathing ragged.

“He’s in the goat kitchen. He and Nickie, both.”

Lisa stalked off, to find them, aware that Tuck had picked up his pace, to follow. She didn’t care. She wasn’t afraid of him—she was furious.

The dogs barked and scratched excitedly at the door as she neared, and erupted from the room, when she opened it. Nickie bolted straight for Tuck and jumped up on him, full of canine joy. He bent to hug her and scratch her ears. Gil would have gone to greet him, too, had Lisa not snagged his collar.

She half-walked, half-dragged him into the kitchen and snatched up her purse.

“You’re still going,” Tuck observed.

“How were you never promoted to Lieutenant? Yes. I’m going,” she snapped.

“I never wanted to take that exam,” Tuck replied in a mild tone. “Hold up a minute, would you? At least let me explain—“

“Explain?”

“Wrong word. Let me tell you what happened, then. Please, Lisa. I won’t try to stop you from leaving, but hear me out.”

“I’m just too angry, right now, Tuck.”

“I don’t blame you. But you know that wasn’t me, honey. You know it. Have you ever known me to be violent?”

“Yes, I know it wasn’t you. That doesn’t make it better. He could come back—“

“I don’t think he will.” Tuck sighed heavily, and collapsed into an armchair. “For one thing, I’m too tired to support him anymore, tonight.” He offered her a smile, but it was a poor thing.

“I get that he…latched onto you, somehow, when you were at the house, but how?” Lisa sat down on the sofa, and turned Gil loose. The dog went boneless, landing on her left foot. “You didn’t go in.”

“I did, though. The ladder was in the house, right there in the bedroom, where we left it. I went through the window, shoved it out, and went out after it. Honest to God, Lisa—I forgot that it was there, until I was ready to leave to go do the job. It didn’t seem like a big deal. It wasn’t a big deal.”

“Evidently, it was,” Lisa’s smile was bitter.

“I was wrong, yes. I miscalculated.” He glanced at her, then got up suddenly to go to the kitchen.

She could hear him open the freezer; the crack of an ice cube tray. Surely, he wasn’t getting something stronger to drink. But, no; the ice cubes thumped onto the counter, with a muffled sound. When he came back, he was carrying a makeshift ice pack, wrapped in a dishtowel.

“Here,” he handed it to her. “Your lips are swelling, a little bit.” She touched her fingers to her lips. He was right.

“Thank you,” she said, and pressed the ice to her mouth.

“The least I can do,” he shrugged, resuming his seat in the chair. “I’m responsible for it, after all.”

“No. I can’t blame this on you. I taunted an asshole, and he retaliated. Where do you suppose he is, now?”

“Beats me. The first I became aware of him, was after I had the beer, in the convenience store parking lot.”

“A beer isn’t much alcohol, but I know how you feel about drinking and driving. Why would you do that, Tucker?”

“It’s a long story. When I got into the house, the cover was still off the cellar hole. I put it back, thinking I might just put a screw or two in it, as well. So, I pushed the ladder out the window, thinking I’d grab the drill, next. Then, I checked the second board, to make sure it was going to stay put, turned on the power…”

“Wait—what?”

“Exactly. Everything that happened between the ladder going out the window, and my checking the last board is a complete blank.”

“Oh, Tuck—no!” Her eyes were wide, with horror.

“Yeah, it really shook me up. I even threw up, a little. Anyway, the store is so close to the house. I thought I’d have a beer to settle my nerves, and some crackers, to settle my stomach. It worked, insofar as it went. My stomach did settle, though the beer made me feel a bit more affected than it usually does. I put it down to fatigue. I tossed the can into the trash, and popped a mint. I didn’t think I’d get pulled over, or anything—I was almost to my own driveway—but I didn’t want you to think anything was wrong.”

“You didn’t want me to know anything was wrong.”

“That’s fair. I didn’t. Anyway, you would think that I would be obsessing over the incident that had just happened, all the way home, right?”

She nodded.

“But, I didn’t. I was feeling pretty good, by the time I started the car. All I really thought about, on the way home, was you. Not the usual thoughts. The usual thoughts are funny, or friendly, maybe exasperated, from time to time. These thoughts were…twisted. Unpleasant, and compelling, at the same time. That’s when I realized that they weren’t my thoughts, at all.”

“What kind of thoughts? Did he want to hurt me?”

“Yes, but not physically. He wanted to ‘put you in your place’. I fought, Lisa, and I was holding my own, until that second beer.”

“He stopped making much of an effort to deceive me, after that,” she agreed. She touched her lips again. They were almost back to normal.

“Put the dogs in the bathroom,” Tuck said.

Confused, Lisa followed his gaze, and saw flashing red and blue lights, at the front window.

“What—“

“Put the dogs in the bathroom, so they don’t get shot,” Tuck amplified the command.